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		</div><p>Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has told the country&#8217;s National Court he did not know anything about the ruling Popular Party&#8217;s accounting practices when a corrupt scheme allegedly helped fund it.</p>
<p>Wednesday&#8217;s highly-anticipated hearing was the first time that a prime minister has appeared in court while holding office since Spain transitioned to democracy four decades ago.</p>
<p>Mr Rajoy himself is not accused of wrongdoing, but the court called him to provide evidence as the party&#8217;s vice secretary general until 2003, and its secretary general until 2004, when the illegal funding scheme was allegedly still operating.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;I never took care of the economic issues in the party. I was devoted to political activity,&#8221; Mr Rajoy told the three magistrates during the proceeding.</p>
<p>Businesspeople, elected officials and other Popular Party members, including two former treasurers, are among the 37 accused of bribery, money laundering and tax evasion in the &#8220;Gurtel case&#8221;, named after the German translation for belt.</p>
<p>The Spanish word for belt is also the last name of Francisco Correa, a businessman arrested in 2009 who is the key defendant in the case, considered one of the largest corruption scandals in the country&#8217;s modern history.</p>
<p>Correa faces a 125-year prison sentence if found guilty of controlling the network of aides and companies that arranged free events for the party in exchange for public contracts.</p>
<p>Mr Rajoy arrived in a convoy at the tightly secured National Court compound in San Fernando de Henares on the outskirts of Madrid.</p>
<p>Close by but out of Mr Rajoy&#8217;s sight, around 100 protesters held banners accusing the conservative party of covering up corruption. Some signs read &#8220;Mafia out, democracy in&#8221;.</p>
<p>In an apparent attempt to underscore that he is a witness and not a defendant, Mr Rajoy gave evidence seated at a table on the stage at the same level as the three magistrates &#8211; not standing in front of them as is customary.</p>
<p>Mr Rajoy repeated what he had said earlier: that he never met Correa and he was the one, as party president in 2004, who ordered a halt to contracting with Correa&#8217;s companies upon learning that they were misusing the conservative party&#8217;s name.</p>
<p>The trial is part of a wider probe into illegal party funding reflected in hidden accounting kept by Luis Barcenas, the party treasurer for almost three decades.</p>
<p>In the most damaging allegations to date, Barcenas has said there was always a scheme of illegal contributions to the Popular Party and that top officials were aware. The party and Mr Rajoy have denied his claims.</p>
<p>Mr Rajoy called allegations that high-ranking party officials received illegal bonuses &#8220;absolutely false&#8221;. He explained that some received additional payments from the Popular Party to their salaries as legislators &#8211; money he said was taxed. He said those payments were halted as soon as any of the politicians took a position in the government.</p>
<p>As prime minister, Mr Rajoy has made economic growth and job creation his chief goals since the party returned to power in 2011. In June, he won a no-confidence debate called against him by Podemos, a left-wing opposition party, because of the myriad of corruption scandals involving the Popular Party.</p>
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