Aldama’s accusations without evidence return the focus of the Koldo case to the phones that remain to be examined

The expectation that Víctor de Aldama’s voluntary statement had raised before the judge in the Koldo case led this Thursday to a tremendous cloud of dust in which relevant names from the Government and the PSOE appeared, accused by the businessman of collecting envelopes full of money in sordid scenes. of corruption. Some of these statements, those that affect José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García, amplify the evidence contained in the summary, but others, such as the payment in a bar of 15,000 euros to the ‘number three’ of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, They have no support for now. The future of the Koldo case once again depends on the huge number of electronic devices, many mobile phones, that the Civil Guard seized and that have not yet been able to be decrypted.

“My Government is a clean Government that was born to fight corruption,” Pedro Sánchez proclaimed hours after the end of Aldama’s statement, who was released just nine hours after his confession at the National Court. The President of the Government improvised an appearance at the doors of Congress to celebrate the approval of the fiscal pact, a key vote for his Government. When asked by the media, he dismissed Aldama’s accusations, whom he referred to as a “character.”

As soon as he was released from prison, the businessman accused of corruption, before getting into a private vehicle, warned the president: “Don’t worry, you will have evidence.”

Hours before, to questions from his lawyer at the National Court, Aldama had dedicated the first part of his appearance to referring to the President of the Government and the context of the photo of both of them that he published The World last October, taken at a 2019 electoral event and which the opposition has been agitating for weeks as proof of Sánchez’s involvement in the plot.

According to Aldama, it was the president who asked to see him and Koldo García and Ábalos “made him go” to that event. In a place with restricted access, they took a photo and received thanks from Sánchez for his efforts in Mexico, where a relevant infrastructure contract was being developed—the so-called Mayan Train—in which several Spanish companies were interested. Finally, companies such as Acciona, FCC, UG21 and Azvi participated in part of its construction. “Thank you for what you are doing, you have kept me informed,” the businessman assured that Sánchez told him. “What an invention!” the president reacted this Thursday at the doors of Congress.

Aldama’s statement came at his own request, when he was five weeks into prison for a hydrocarbon fraud of more than 180 million euros. The investigated person spent just over two hours this Thursday deploying his accusations. In a succession of events that reveals prior planning, his lawyer then asked Judge Santiago Pedraz, who was keeping him in prison, to order his release.

In the afternoon, in a decision agreed upon by the prosecutor in the case, Luis Pastor, and his head in Anti-Corruption, Alejandro Luzón, the Public Ministry transferred the judge who was not opposed to Aldama’s release. This pronouncement by the Public Ministry forced the judge to dictate the freedom of the businessman, since the piece was secret and could not be communicated to the rest of the parties so that they could rule on his departure.

Before Judge Ismael Moreno, in charge of the Koldo case, Víctor de Aldama had said that he would collaborate in the hydrocarbons case and also in that of the Supreme Court, which is exclusively investigating the accused José Luis Ábalos, former number two of the PSOE and minister of Promotion in the first Sánchez Government. Sources from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office defend that it was not necessary to wait for the person under investigation to collaborate in clarifying the cause that kept him in prison, a statement that different legal sources consulted by elDiario.es question.

Anti-corruption defends its decision to endorse freedom by alleging that Aldama has expressed his willingness to testify in that case and that he also made reference in his statement today about the Koldo case to hydrocarbon fraud. Before the judge investigating the collection of commissions for the sale of masks to the Government, he only referred to the purchase of a chalet by another of those investigated in the hydrocarbon case for the enjoyment of Ábalos, something that the UCO investigation had already detailed in its latest report.

In a press release, Anticorruption valued the commission agent’s “extensive” statement and justified the support for his release from prison due to the “recognition” of the crimes he is accused of and the fact that he had even admitted to having committed other crimes. And he stated that “other aspects of his statement” had not been assessed to make that decision.

UCO reports, past and future

Two reports from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard support the Koldo case. The first of them, which emerged last March, made it possible to learn about the secret investigation and by order of the National Court that the Civil Guard had carried out, with tapped phones and monitored appointments.

Last month, a second extensive report revealed the secrets kept by some of the telephone numbers of those investigated. In it, the gifts from the corruption plot to the former Minister of Transport and the mentions of “the 1”, in reference to Sánchez, surfaced, without any of them representing an incriminating element against the President of the Government, beyond being the person most responsible. of the Executive. Agents are still working on additional reports derived from analyzing months and months of phone conversations, messages and emails.

In the absence of a recording or evidence that proves the alleged payment to Santos Cerdán, only the testimony of the alleged third attendee of that appointment, Koldo García, or the trace of the payment in one of the seized devices could reinforce Aldama’s accusation in the Court. National. “What he says is absolutely false, he is only trying to save himself,” Cerdán reacted in Congress while his party announced legal actions against Aldama.

The investigated person also assured that he made cash payments to Koldo García, which agrees with the line of investigation followed by the Civil Guard, which had already proven the bribes of 10,000 euros in cash per month that the then advisor received from the plot. Aldama assured that these payments would have amounted to up to 200,000 euros, without including other perks such as vehicles for his family or health treatments.

Regarding former Minister Ábalos, the Civil Guard had so far detected compensation in kind in charge of the plot – the enjoyment of a chalet in exchange for his intercession in contracts or the payment of the rent for the home of his partner – but not the collection of bites. Aldama assured this Thursday that he had received 250,000 euros in commissions only for the mask contracts linked to the ministry he presided over. An amount to which another 400,000 euros would be added as payment for the different “favors” that he would have performed for the benefit of his businesses.

Aldama’s statement does support indications collected in that latest UCO report, which defines the businessman as the “corrupting element” of the plot that nested in the Ministry of Transportation, but which also accounts for his ability to initiate or consolidate other business avenues in the Administration or their important contacts in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. In this last country, his relationship with the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, stands out, in whose controversial trip to Spain in January 2020 the businessman played a relevant role. The president was prohibited from entering the European Union but, despite this, she landed and stayed for a few hours in the VIP lounge of the executive terminal at Barajas airport.

Before the judge, Aldama assured that Sánchez was aware of that trip and that he was even scheduled to attend a dinner that was going to be held with other ministers in a chalet in the luxurious El Viso area of ​​Madrid that he himself had rented. in charge of renting to accommodate it. Finally, Delcy Rodríguez barely spent five hours in Spain because, surprisingly, two hours before the trip she was announced that she would be detained if she entered the country. The Supreme Court even opened an investigation into these events, but shelved it when it understood that non-compliance with the foreign policy decisions of the European Union is subject to political control, not criminal responsibility.