FORMER president of the PP for Castellón Carlos Fabra has gone to jail 11 years after legal action was first taken against him.
He was given five days to enter prison voluntarily, a period which ended yesterday (Monday) and which he eked out until the very last minute, telling reporters he 'preferred to stay at home'.
Fabra, who is no relation to the Comunidad Valenciana's regional president Alberto Fabra, chose to go to a detention centre in Madrid, close to his family and many of his friends, and also near to the medical team which has been treating him following a liver transplant.
Ex-president of Castellón provincial council and head of the PP for the province, Carlos Fabra has been sentenced to four years behind bars for four counts of tax fraud committed between 1999 and 2003, during which time he knowingly failed to pay 693,000 euros in duties.
Fabra's ex-wife María Amparo Fernández has also been sentenced to two years in jail for two fiscal offences – allegedly taking an illegal commission for speeding up the commercialising of healthcare products retailed by Naranjax, a firm owned by Vicente Vilar who filed legal action against her 11 years ago.
Fabra, 68, was acquitted of power-dealing and bribery, which meant the 13 years in jail he was originally facing were reduced to four.
The former provincial council president was behind the construction of Castellón airport, a terminal which has never seen a plane land or take off.
This empty and never-used airport has been the butt of international jokes in the press, and features a statue of Carlos Fabra – commissioned by the provincial president himself – which cost in region of 180,000 euros to build.
