A Madrid court sentenced former International Monetary Fund director Rodrigo Rato to nearly five years in prison, after convicting him on corruption charges, the court announced on Friday.
Rato, who has denied any wrongdoing throughout the nine-year investigation, said in a statement sent to Reuters via law firm Baker McKenzie that the ruling was “unfair” and that he would appeal.
Rato had spent two years in prison in a separate embezzlement case during his tenure as head of Spain’s Bankia.
After a year-long trial, the court convicted Rato on three counts of crimes against the Spanish tax authorities, as well as corruption involving individuals outside the public sector, and money laundering. He was sentenced to four years, nine months and one day in prison.
A court spokesman said that since the decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court, Rato will not have to serve any prison time for the time being until a final ruling is issued.
Rato, 75, who headed the International Monetary Fund from 2004 to 2007 and Bankia from 2010 to 2012, spent two years in prison after being convicted in 2017 of misusing Bankia credit cards to buy jewelry, vacations and expensive clothes.
In the latest corruption case, the prosecution requested a 63-year prison sentence on the 11 charges against him.
Last year, Rato’s lawyer, Maria Masso, Baker McKenzie, asked the court to dismiss the charges, arguing that Rato’s rights had been violated during a search of his home in 2015, so evidence obtained in the raid should be thrown out.
The court also ordered Rato to pay fines worth more than two million euros ($2.08 million), in addition to 568,413 euros to the tax authorities.
Rato, who served as deputy prime minister in the conservative People’s Party government between 1996 and 2004, was acquitted in a separate fraud trial over a bank listing in 2012.
($1 = 0.9625 euros)