Ex-IMF chief Rato gets four-year jail term

Ex-IMF chief Rodrigo Rato sentenced to over 4 years for tax crimes, money laundering, and corruption.

MADRID:

A Madrid court on Friday said ex-IMF chief and Spanish economy minister Rodrigo Rato received a jail term of more than four years for tax crimes, money laundering and corruption.

The sentence comes after the disgraced former heavyweight of Spain's conservative Popular Party was jailed for four and a half years in 2018 for misusing funds while working at a bank.

Prosecutors had alleged that Rato defrauded the Spanish tax office and lined his own pockets to the tune of 8.5 million euros between 2005 and 2015.

Judges found Rato guilty of "three offences against the Treasury, one offence of money laundering and one offence of corruption between individuals", the court said in a statement.

Rato was sentenced to four years, nine months and one day in jail and fined more than two million euros ($2.1 million), which he can appeal at the Supreme Court.

Rato spent eight years variously serving as economy minister and a deputy prime minister in the conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar before going on to lead the International Monetary Fund from 2004 to 2007.