THE party which dominated much of Catalunya’s democratic era through the noughties is found corrupt.

A court in Barcelona has found the now-defunct Catalan party Convergencia Democratica de Catalunya (CDC) guilty of taking millions of euros in bribes in exchange for public work contracts.

The court ruled the CDC received €6.6 million in bribes from building firm Ferrovial between 1999 and 2009.

It is understood they were channelled through the Palau de la Musica, a concert hall in Barcelona, which was a front.

In the widely anticipated case, former treasurer, Daniel Osacar has been handed a jail term of four years and fined €3.7 million as well as former director of the Palau, Felix Millet, who got 10 years and fined €4.1 million.

His deputy, Jordi Montull, was handed 7 years and fined €2.9 million.

The prosecutor in the case, Emilio Sánchez Ulled, charged that “the Palau was the [CDC’s] money pipeline” and found that a total of €35 million went missing from the building’s accounts.

Part of an eight-and-half-year investigation, the case tainted the image of CDC who changed their name in 2016 to the Catalan Democratic Party.

Then in the run-up to the Catalunya independence referendum in a bid to shake off further association to the scandal by changing their name to the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT).

The party of ousted president Carles Puigdemont, who is currently living in exile in Brussels.
