Saturday, December 21, 2024 - Former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato was on Friday, Dec. 20, sentenced to more than four years in prison by a Madrid court for tax crimes, money laundering and corruption.
Judges found Rato, who was also a former economy minister in Spain,
guilty of “three offences against the treasury, one offence of money laundering
and one offence of corruption between individuals,” the court announced in a
statement.
Rato, who had already spent two years in prison over a separate
embezzlement case during his tenure as chairman of Spanish lender Bankia, has
denied any wrongdoing throughout the nine-year probe.
Following a year-long trial, the court convicted Rato on three counts of
offences against Spanish tax authorities, as well as corruption involving
individuals outside the public sector, and money laundering.
It sentenced him to four years, nine months and a day in prison.
Since the decision can be challenged on appeal before the Supreme Court,
Rato will not have to serve any prison time for now until there is a final
ruling, a court spokesperson said.
Rato, 75, who chaired the IMF from 2004 to 2007 and Bankia between 2010
and 2012, previously spent two years in prison after being convicted in
2017 over the misuse of Bankia credit cards to buy jewels, holidays and
expensive clothes.
In the more recent corruption case, prosecutors had requested a total
jail sentence of 63 years for the 11 charges against him.
Last year, Rato's lawyer Maria Masso, from law firm Baker McKenzie, had
asked the court to dismiss the charges, arguing that Rato's rights had been
violated during a 2015 search of his home, so evidence obtained in the raid
should be annulled.
Baker McKenzie declined to comment on Friday on Masso's behalf following
a request from Reuters.
The court also ordered Rato to pay fines worth more than two million
euros ($2.08 million), as well as 568,413 euros to tax authorities.
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