Top Spain court upholds jail for former ruling party officials

Spain’s Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld convictions for 16 former top officials from the ruling Socialists in Andalusia over one of the biggest graft cases in the country’s modern history.

The ruling comes as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists slump in opinion polls ahead of general elections expected in late 2023.

A Seville court in 2019 convicted 19 former top Socialist officials in Andalusia for diverting 680 million euros ($695 million) in public funds meant to help the unemployed and companies in difficulties in the southern region.

Among those convicted were two former heads of the regional government of Andalusia, Manuel Chaves and Jose Antonio Grinan.

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the convictions of 16 of the 19 former officials, including those of Grinan and Chaves, and acquitted three others.

It maintained Grinan’s conviction for embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds and his jail sentence of six years, as well as his ineligibility to hold public office for 15 years.

The court also confirmed Chaves’s conviction of maladministration and his ineligibility to hold public office for nine years.

Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region, had been for decades a stronghold of the Socialists.

But the Socialists lost control of the regional government in January 2019 after 36 years in office to a coalition led by the conservative Popular Party (PP).

The PP argues the case shows the Socialists resorted to cronyism, using taxpayers’ money to reward supporters with jobs and benefits in a bid to maintain their grip on the region.

Sanchez came to power in June 2018 thanks to a no-confidence vote sparked by another major corruption scandal involving members of the PP.

Polls show the Socialists are trailing the PP, which in April appointed a moderate new leader, Alberto Nunez Feijoo.