Three years in prison, six years of disqualification from public office and another five and a half years without being able to take up employment that involves the provision of medical services in any organisation administered by the Generalitat, this is the request for a penalty that the former mayor of Orihuela, Emilio Bascuñana is facing.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor accuses the former mayor of the continued crimes of prevarication and embezzlement, both as a co-operator and inducer, for having received a salary for more than four years from the Ministry of Health without carrying out any activity that justified that salary.
The current PP spokesman in the Orihuela City Council, is alleged to have pocketed 141,031 euros between November 2007 and December 2011, an amount whose return is claimed by the Ministry of Health.
The judicial investigation, which began in 2020, has concluded that the former provincial president of the Red Cross, when he was a doctor in a primary care centre in Orihuela, was assigned to the Territorial Directorate of Health in Alicante ” but without any tasks or functions”.
Anti-Corruption maintains that “this was a flagrant breach of the law, which was done arbitrarily and in full knowledge of the illegality of its proceeding.”.
A letter in which it is concluded that “in an improper way by not making any type of benefit in exchange, the defendant unjustly enriched himself from the public treasury by receiving the amount of the remuneration that was delivered to him monthly for the alleged activities he carried out , amounts that were distracted from their legitimate purpose by not being applied to any public purpose.
What is not mentioned in the demand is that the alleged irregularities were made possible due to the actions of several then high-ranking Health officials, against whom proceedings have not be taken, so perhaps it is not only Emilio Bascuñana that is at fault but the individuals in the Valencian Health Authority who allowed the payments to continue for over four years before they were challenged.
As they would appear to be equally to blame, why do their names not also appear in any judgement?
