Rajoy brushes off lawyer’s attacks in corruption trial

Bloomberg

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy batted away questions from lawyers prosecuting his former party colleagues as they tried to tie him in to an alleged bribery ring run from the group’s headquarters.
Rajoy said that he’d never had anything to do with party finances, despite running four election campaigns and serving as president since 2004. He insisted that he never knew anything about alleged cash payments to party officials.
“There was a clear and sharp separation between the political side and the financing,” the premier said. “My responsibilities are political, not the accounts.”
Rajoy is the first sitting prime minister of Spain’s democratic era to give evidence in a criminal trial. Thirty-seven people are accused of running a bribery ring to help fund operations of Rajoy’s People’s Party, including former Treasurer Luis Barcenas, who has pleaded innocent and opted not to attend the session. The prime minister had asked to appear via teleconference, saying he was too busy to attend the courtroom, but the judges insisted he appear in person.
The prosecution lawyer Mariano Benitez de Lugo ran afoul of the judge, expressing his frustration as questions were ruled ineligible. Meanwhile Rajoy grew in confidence, chuckling to himself and occasionally goading his interrogator. “That’s not exactly a brilliant deduction,” he said at one point.
The hearing offered an insight into the lifestyle of senior PP officials during Spain’s boom years. Wednesday’s case is focusing on the period between 1999 and 2005, leading up to and immediately following Rajoy’s appointment as party leader in 2004.