A defendant in the ‘BPA case’ questions the accusations of the ‘Emperor case’
The Court of Courts of Andorra resumed this Monday the trial of the ‘BPA case’. Today was the turn of Sergio Fernandezthe only one of the defendants in this case, who he is also prosecuted in the ‘Emperor case’ who is instructed in National audience Spanish, and that it would serve basic to support the Andorran trial.
In this sense, it should be remembered that the prosecution, represented by the Attorney General of the PrincipalityAlfons Alberca, considers that the former employees and directors of the defunct Andorran Private Bank (BPA) favored money laundering of the organization led by gao pingthe main accused of ‘Emperor’.
No criminal record, no money laundering
However, and as the defendant has recorded to questions from his lawyer, all the criminal record – necessary for a subsequent money laundering in Andorra – which appears in the Emperor case in Spain, were shelved by the Spanish investigating judge José Luis Calama in a car from September 2020.
Although the rapporteur magistrate, the Catalan Enric Angladahas recalled that this judicial order was appealed by the Spanish Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Officethe former manager wanted to be able to alleviate that “bank workers cannot be required to know of the existence of alleged crimes that, ten years later, a judge considers do not exist and the files”. This situation, according to the former BPA employee, would leave the Spanish Emperor case circumscribed in the fiscal crime, a crime that in the year of the events that are judged was not typified in Andorra and could not lead to money laundering.
In addition, on the other hand, Fernández has lamented that neverin the year and a half that they have been judging this case, have been asked about these alleged crimes that would have given rise to the laundering of which they are accused. “Ask me if I knew the pimps, if he knew of the existence of a human trafficking network or a corruption network… But we have never been asked about it… which makes my defense very difficult, by not understanding what background supports the money laundering for which I am being accused”.
The lies of Rafael Pallardo
The second part of his statement focused on refute the statements made by Rafael Pallardóclient of BPA and of course collaborator of Gao Ping, and on which a good part of the protests that fall on the example of the bank would be based.
In this line, Fernández has recorded that he was never the manager of Pallardó, as the businessman from Barcelona said during the instruction.
In those same statements, Pallardó also assured that, after BPA will cut off business transactions with Xina, it was the defendant who offered him an alternative to continue operating, through ‘clearing operations’ with another bank customer. However, Fernández has shown an SMS in which it is shown that the two clients of the entity were in contactbeing they who organize a strategy to continue operating outside the knowledge of BPA. “Can’t talk to the bank” it reads in the messages”Do not tell them that I have contacted you, I do not want them to be angry”. Proving, then, that Fernández does not offer any alternative to Pallardó.
new suspension
At the end of the session, the president of the room, Enric Angladahas informed those present that for health reasons one of the three magistrates that make up the court and that he must undergo a surgical intervention the trial will be suspended again in January.
This nth suspension It is scheduled to last three months. and has forced the sessions to be rescheduled until December 2023. After several suspensions dating back to 2018, the trial of the BPA case definitively began in June 2021.