Exaggerated sentences? The examples that Spanish socialists prefer to omit

The sentencing of former minister Ábalos to 24 years in prison has provoked an angry reaction from the government, the PSOE, and its media apparatus.

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Óscar Puente compares Ábalos's sentences to those of a murderer

One of the most repeated arguments by what is now known as the PSOE's synchronized opinion team was reflected yesterday in Minister Óscar Puente's complaint that Ábalos's sentence is "disproportionate". In a shameful message posted on his Twitter account, Puente stated: "Not to mention other cases, Isabel Carrasco was shot three times at point-blank range on a footbridge in León. These were the sentences handed down to her killers. Let everyone draw their own conclusions." Along with this message, the minister posted a screenshot indicating that the three perpetrators of this crime received sentences ranging from 14 to 22 years. This is a blatant manipulation.

A deception perpetrated by a minister who has a law degree

The Supreme Court already indicated yesterday that Ábalos has been convicted of 9 crimes. Therefore, it is not that a corruption crime carries a harsher sentence than murder (and if it did, which it does not, the responsibility would lie with the legislators, who approve the laws, and not with the judges, who merely apply them), but rather that the The sum of several crimes implies a sum of sentences that in this case exceeds that of a single homicide offense.

Of course, the minister knows this perfectly well: Puente has a law degree from the University of Valladolid, so he is misrepresenting the sentence knowing full well that he is deceiving people, because by virtue of his degree he knows perfectly well—and if he doesn't remember, he only needs to consult a lawyer before spouting the first nonsense that comes to mind—that in the Spanish penal code there is no flat rate for committing crimes, with one exception: that the sum of the sentences exceeds 40 years, unless the convicted person has committed a particularly serious crime and has been sentenced to permanent reviewable imprisonment, a type of sentence that the PSOE rejected.

Socialism's favor to bloodthirsty terrorists: less than a year for murder

It is precisely at this point that comparisons that would have been more pertinent on the part of Minister Puente are lacking. In 2018, I denounced here that the ETA terrorist Santi Potros spent only 31 years in prison for 40 murders and one kidnapping, having been sentenced to a sum of €3,000 for various crimes. To give you an idea, that bloodthirsty killer spent less than a year in prison for each murder. Four years earlier, the news had been reported in Spain the one-year prison sentence for a man for stealing two cans of infant formula for his son and nephew from a pharmacy in Palma de Mallorca.

Óscar Puente and other members of the government and PSOE activists could have cited that case and similar ones involving ETA terrorists. If this socialist disinformation campaign (which is the best way to describe this blatant mass manipulation we are witnessing) omits these cases, it is because the PSOE contributed to these injustices. Like other ETA assassins, Santi Potros benefited from the repeal of the so-called "Parot doctrine", which was one of the concessions agreed upon by the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with ETA two decades ago, something we know thanks to a French police operation, since the socialist governments and the Rajoy government never wanted to publish the minutes of that secret negotiation, which among other results also had the legalization of ETA's political wing.

Sánchez's amnesty for the 2017 coup plotters in exchange for their support

The government and the PSOE could also have given another example: the ringleaders of the 2017 separatist coup in Catalonia were sentenced to prison terms of between 9 and 13 years, sentences much lower than that of Ábalos. In total, the sum of the sentences of those ringleaders was 100 years but they only served 32.

The reason why Spanish socialism doesn't use this example is obvious: Sánchez granted amnesty to the coup plotters in exchange for the support of Catalan separatism for his reelection, an indecent trade of penal privileges in exchange for political support that constitutes one of the greatest acts of political corruption that Spain has witnessed in half a century of democracy. The PSOE deputies, among them Óscar Puente, they supported that infamy in Congress, and today they still have the tremendous nerve to come out and lecture us on justice and the proportionality of sentences.

Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm.