Spain’s National Audience (Audiencia Nacional) is trying the Asturian company Duro Felguera, its former president Juan Carlos Torres, and former Venezuelan deputy ministers Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado Ochoa starting this Monday for a series of alleged bribes related to the construction of a thermoelectric power plant in the Caribbean nation.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is requesting nine years and six months in prison, along with a €160 million fine, for the former president of Duro Felguera for corruption in international business transactions and a continued offense of falsifying commercial documents. It also asks that the company be sentenced to a €160 million fine and banned for two years from receiving public subsidies and aid, contracting with the public sector, and enjoying tax or Social Security benefits and incentives for the offense of corruption in international business transactions.
For Villalobos—who is also indicted in the ‘Leire Díez case’—the prosecution is asking for an 8-year and 9-month prison sentence and a €3.6 million fine for three continued counts of falsifying commercial documents and one count of money laundering. For the same offenses, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requests that Alvarado Ochoa be sentenced to 3 months in prison and a €1.6 million fine.
Also appearing in the dock are the wives of the former Venezuelan deputy ministers, María Consuelo Pardí and Milagros Coromoto Torres, and the former CEO of Duro Felguera, Ángel Antonio del Valle.
