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CORRUPTION

Former Balearics regional premier faces new graft inquiry

Matas is out on bail as he appeals a six-year sentence handed down this year

Palma de Mallorca -

Legal problems facing former Balearics premier Jaume Matas piled up on Friday when a judge named him as a target in another inquiry for allegedly helping divert public funds to his regional Popular Party.

Matas, who has been sentenced to six years in another corruption case and is out on bail until his appeal, is a suspect in a purported money-diversion scheme involving the Balearics Tourism Institute (Ibatur), which awarded contracts to ghost event planners.

Palma de Mallorca Judge Francisco J. Pérez, who is looking into different angles of the larger Palma Arena corruption case, also named two others as targets in the investigation, including Matas’ former interior commissioner José María Rodríguez.

Matas served as regional premier on two occasions: from 1996 to 1999 and 2003 to 2007. In March, a three-judge panel convicted him of fraud, influence peddling and embezzlement for paying nearly 500,000 euros to businesses set up by a former columnist at the Spanish daily El Mundo.

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