Luis Bárcenas
| Luis Bárcenas | |
|---|---|
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Spanish Senator for Cantabria |
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In office 14 March 2004 – 19 April 2010 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
José Luis Bárcenas Gutíerrez October 22, 1957 Huelva, Spain |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Political party | Partido Popular |
| Spouse(s) | Rosalía Iglesias Villar |
| Children | Guillermo Bárcenas[1] |
| Profession | Businessman |
José Luis Bárcenas Gutiérrez (born October 22, 1957 in Huelva, Spain) served as party treasurer of Spain's Partido Popular (PP, People's Party) and a senator. Formerly a key player in his party's accounts department, since 2009 he has been embroiled in political corruption scandals. In 2016/2017, he has appeared in court in the ongoing Gürtel trial.
Luis Bárcenas started working in the People's Party accounts department in 1990, and he became the chief administrator of the party in 1993. In 2008, the president of the party, Mariano Rajoy, personally chose him as Treasurer to replace Álvaro Lapuerta. He pursued a parallel career as a politician, and in 2004 and 2008 was elected to represent Cantabria in the Senate.
His time as treasurer was short, as he "temporarily" resigned in 2009 when his implication in the Gürtel scandal became too much of a public embarrassment for the party. Bárcenas stood down from the Senate in 2010, and his resignation as treasurer was made definitive, but until early 2013 he retained access to an office at the PP headquarters and continued to receive payments from the party equivalent to his salary, under circumstances which are disputed.
In 2011 the case against him was put on hold because of uncertainty regarding the identification of individuals described by initials or an alias (it had been claimed that the alias "Luis el cabrón" referred to Bárcenas). However, the case was reopened in 2012 and he was accused of "tax fraud and of receiving illegal payments". The controversy around him further flared up in January 2013, when the Swiss authorities informed the Gürtel investigation that he held a Swiss bank account that had contained €22 million. (It later emerged that he controlled significant further funds in that country). Additionally, he admitted using the 2012 tax amnesty voted by the PP to legalize €10 million hidden through a Uruguayan company.
In 2013 Spain's two main dailies, El Mundo (center-right) and El País (center-left), alleged that the PP had used unofficial parallel accounting to hide slush money from illegal donations. Two former treasurers, Bárcenas and his predecessor Lapuerta, allegedly used these illegal donations in part "to make under-the-table payments to PP leaders". The donations in question appeared to contravene party financing laws on two counts: first, for exceeding the 60,000-euro limit for any one individual or company; second, many alleged donors were involved in the construction sector and were simultaneously being awarded government contracts. However, there were indications that measures had been taken to keep donations within the letter of the law.
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