Former IMF head gets 41/2 years for misuse of funds

Madrid

RODRIGO Rato, a former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was convicted on Thursday on charges of misusing the funds of a Spanish bank that he led to near-collapse. He was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in jail.

Rato is the most prominent person to have been convicted since the rescue of the bank, Bankia, in 2012. As such, he has been the face of Spain's elites and financial industry executives targeted in Spain, which had to bail out its ailing banks during the European debt crisis.