Aldama avoids jail: the Supreme Court's decision that opens the debate on the proportionality of sentences

The Supreme Court's ruling against José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García, and Víctor de Aldama not only condemns a corruption plot. It also leaves a politically explosive and legally uncomfortable question: is it proportional that the businessman who paid, channeled, or facilitated the bribes remains practically out of prison while public officials receive sentences of 24 and 19 years?

The ruling imposes on José Luis Ábalos a total sentence of 24 years and three months in prison, with a maximum effective compliance limit of 16 and a half years; on Koldo García, 19 years and eight months, with a maximum of 15 years; and on Víctor de Aldama, four and a half years in prison. But the essential difference is not only in the figure. It is in the execution: Aldama will not go to prison if he meets the conditions set by the court, including not committing crimes for five years, appearing semi-annually, and investing one year in community service.

The result is difficult to explain in terms of public perception: the corruptor convicted of active bribery remains out of jail; the corrupted, on the other hand, receive sentences typical of the major corruption cases of democracy.

The Chamber justifies Aldama's privileged treatment by his "collaboration with justice." The ruling states that the businessman provided relevant data, documentation, and information, and that his statement allowed the investigation to advance. But that's where the debate begins. Because one thing is to recognize a useful collaboration and quite another to turn that collaboration into a kind of penal safe conduct when the resolution's own narrative lists a wide set of independent evidence: police reports, administrative documentation, messages, emails, conversations, witnesses, bank data, and documentation from the Tax Agency.

In other words: Aldama does not seem to be the evidence. Aldama is, in many points, the interested interpreter of evidence that was already being built by other means.

The Supreme Court states that his testimony "confirmed," "buttressed," and "contextualized" elements that investigators had already obtained. That expression is key. Confirming is not discovering. Buttressing is not providing the smoking gun. Contextualizing is not necessarily being indispensable. And if the conviction rests on a plural body of evidence, as the ruling itself states, the penal benefit granted to the businessman requires a much more demanding explanation than the mere invocation of the repentant.

The paradox grows when one looks at the money. The sentence agrees to the confiscation of 430,298 euros as profits from the crime of bribery: 340,000 euros for monthly payments of 10,000 euros for 34 months, 82,295 euros for the rent of a home and 8,000 euros for another rent. It also sets a civil liability of 34,450 euros for INECO and 9,500.54 euros for TRAGSATEC. But the very account of proven facts speaks of commissions channeled by Aldama through his companies for millionaire amounts in operations related to Soluciones de Gestión, 3.7 million just in masks. The practical consequence is devastating: a minimal and very specific part is confiscated, not all the economic flow surrounding the businessman's actions. And, since the sentence is final, he will be able to keep that commission.

The Supreme Court even rules out imposing the millionaire fine linked to the use of privileged information because it acquits him of that crime. Legally it can be sustained. Politically and from penal equity, the message is much more problematic: whoever appears as the business beneficiary of the plot obtains a drastic reduction, avoids prison and is protected by a very qualified mitigating circumstance.

The comparison with other corruption cases, especially from the Popular Party, further illuminates the contrast. In Gürtel, Francisco Correa, head of the business plot, received 51 years in prison after the Supreme Court's review; Luis Bárcenas, 29 years and one month; Pablo Crespo, 36 years and eight months; Alberto López Viejo, 27 years and ten months. There, the business ringleader was not rewarded with freedom for his position as a useful corruptor, but placed at the center of criminal punishment.

In the PP's 'B box' case, the Supreme Court ended up reducing sentences due to undue delays to much lower levels, with Bárcenas receiving eight months in prison for the undeclared payment for the renovation of Génova. In Púnica, the National Court has imposed sentences of up to eight years and two months for public contracts and bribes in Madrid city councils. In Kitchen, the Prosecutor's Office has requested 15 years in prison for former minister Jorge Fernández Díaz for the parapolice operation against Bárcenas. The comparison does not serve to make an automatic equivalence—each case has different crimes, evidence, and competitions—but it does point to an anomaly: Ábalos's 24 years appear as a very harsh sentence even on the scale of major corruption cases, while Aldama is placed at the opposite extreme.

The inequality is not only in the conviction. It was also present earlier, in the precautionary measures. Ábalos and Koldo ended up in provisional prison due to flight risk given the proximity of the trial. Aldama, on the other hand, was released from prison after testifying and offering cooperation. That is: the procedural incentive operated from the beginning in favor of the businessman. First, it served to get him out of pre-trial detention, where he was for the Hydrocarbons case. Then, to reduce the sentence. Finally, to avoid his effective entry into prison.

The repentant is a legitimate figure. It can be essential to dismantle criminal organizations, especially when investigating opaque corruption schemes. But its use requires a golden rule: the reward must be proportionate to the actual contribution. If the collaborator provides decisive, unprecedented, verifiable evidence without which there would be no conviction, the penal benefit makes sense. If their contribution consists of organizing, confirming, or reinforcing existing evidentiary material, the reward must be smaller. If the contribution is in other cases more than in the one being judged, even smaller.

That is the great weakness of the sentence. The Supreme Court maintains that without Aldama, it would not have been possible to advance in the same way. But it also describes a case full of objective evidence beyond his will: emails, messages, documents, witnesses, economic data, contracts, and administrative actions. The conviction does not seem to rest exclusively, or even primarily, on the word or evidence provided by the businessman. And if it does not rest exclusively on his word, the question is inevitable: why is he granted such an extraordinary benefit?

Democratic criminal justice must be severe with corruption, but also consistent in its severity. If it punishes the politician with sentences of more than two decades and leaves the corrupting businessman without effective prison time, it must explain very well why. It is not enough to say that he collaborated. It must be shown that his collaboration was so essential that it justifies the imbalance.

Because otherwise, the institutional message is perverse: the corruptor who pays, collects, mediates, and benefits can end up better off than the public official who receives or favors the gift. And that logic, taken to the limit, turns criminal justice into a market of incentives where whoever best negotiates their confession gets the best outcome.

The Koldo case leaves a historic conviction. But it also leaves a suspicion of disproportion. Ábalos and Koldo have been punished with extraordinary harshness. Aldama, on the other hand, has received the maximum prize a convicted person can receive: not going to prison. The question is not whether a qualified mitigating circumstance should have been applied. The question is whether that mitigating circumstance should have turned the corrupting businessman into the great beneficiary of the sentence.

Justice must not only punish. It must measure. And in this sentence, the measurement raises a legitimate doubt: if the corruptor comes out practically unscathed, what criminal equity remains for the others?