Former top Socialist officials convicted in major Spain graft case

Seville, Spain: A court in Spain on Tuesday convicted 19 former top officials from the ruling Socialists in Andalusia of graft for their role in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country´s modern history. The ruling comes as acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez struggles to secure enough support from other parties to be sworn in for another term. His Socialist Party won a repeat general election on November 10, but once again fell short of an absolute majority in parliament and the judgement could complicate his talks with other parties. The 19 were convicted by a Seville court of distributing without any control hundreds of millions of euros meant to help the unemployed and companies in difficulty in the southwestern region, in what became known as the ERE case — the Spanish acronym for a mass-layoff plan. In a trial that got under way in December 2017 and lasted a year, prosecutors estimated that between 2000 and 2010 members of the Andalusian administration diverted 680 million euros ($752 million) in public funds.