Ex-Spanish police chief convicted of embezzling millions leaves prison after serving 15 years

Dirty cop completes jail term in Spain

MADRID — A former Spanish police chief convicted of embezzling the equivalent of euro10 million ($14 million) became a free man Friday after serving 15 years in prison, and immediately faced — and dodged — the question on many Spaniards’ minds: where’d he stash the money?

Luis Roldan, 66, declined comment on that part of his saga as he left a halfway house where he has served the last five years of his sentence under a furlough program in the northeastern city of Zaragoza.

“I paid for what I did,” said Roldan, who is arguably one of Spain’s most unpopular people. He symbolized a period of corruption and greed within the political and financial elite that emerged during Spain’s transition to democracy, after the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975.

“If you will, please do not prolong my lack of freedom,” Roldan told a gaggle of reporters, then boarded a municipal bus to go to a small apartment his owns in Zaragoza.

Roldan is alleged to have used front men to squirrel away the money he embezzled and invest it in real estate and other property. Spain’s tax department has recovered less than 10 percent of the booty, according to the newspaper El Pais.

Roldan was convicted in 1998 and sentenced to 28 years in prison, but got time off for good behavior and for taking courses while in prison. He had spent a few years in prison awaiting trial.

His case was part of a wave of corruption scandals that helped bring down then-Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez in elections held in 1996, ending 13 years of Socialist rule.

Roldan was the first civilian to lead the Civil Guard, a paramilitary force that falls under the Interior Ministry. He had even been tapped as a possible interior minister, until he resigned in disgrace in 1993 shortly after a newspaper reported he had a hidden fortune. He fled Spain in 1994 only to be nabbed in Laos 10 months later.