Begoña Gómez returns to court for the third time to answer for Complutense software

Begoña Gómez goes to Juan Carlos Peinado’s office this Wednesday for her third court date in the last five months. The wife of the President of the Government goes to the Plaza de Castilla courts in Madrid to answer for the management of software created by Indra for her chair at the Complutense University. According to HazteOir, whose complaint has given rise to this new summons, Gómez illegally appropriated the tool. According to Begoña Gómez and the University itself, she never registered that software in her name and it all boils down to the fact that, with the center’s approval, she hosted the tool on a website created by one of her companies.

For more than half a year, Juan Carlos Peinado has been exploring any aspect of Begoña Gómez’s professional life that allows her to relate her promotion to the fact of being married to Pedro Sánchez. From her hiring by a private company such as the Instituto de Empresa to a relationship with the Complutense University that began many years before her husband became president of the central government. And the last ramification of the case focuses on how he managed software that Indra created for his chair at no cost to the center.

Throughout her employment relationship with the UCM, Begoña Gómez managed two master’s degrees and a chair in Competitive Social Transformation, all of which has currently been cancelled. Several companies funded the creation of software for one of their courses: a free digital tool so that companies could measure and improve their success in sustainable development. Begoña Gómez created a web domain with a name very similar to that of her professorship and that of one of her companies in which she hosted that software, paying 25 euros out of her pocket.

Complutense herself wrote to the judge to demand an investigation. The center acknowledged in writing that there was no evidence that Gómez had registered the software in his name, for example in the Intellectual Property Registry, and Gómez has provided emails that demonstrate that it was Complutense itself that gave instructions to register a web page where to locate the tool. Other master’s directors at the UCM, Gómez added in a recent writing, had done something similar.

As has happened on previous occasions, Judge Peinado has relied on the popular accusation of HazteOir to transform a diffuse accusation into an accusation. The software was also free and companies did not have to pay anything to use it. Throughout the process, the company Indra has explained that it created it altruistically for the chair and that the cost of its creation, billed internally to subsidiary companies, exceeded 120,000 euros without counting taxes. The judge, in addition to possible misappropriation, also investigates possible professional intrusion because, the complaint says, Gómez prepared and wrote specifications of technical prescriptions for the rectorate to contract this creation of the platform.

For the moment, all the people related to the Complutense University who have testified in the judicial case or in the investigative commission of the Madrid Assembly have affirmed that nothing related to the master’s degrees or Gómez’s extraordinary professorship has any type of criminal relevance. “Everything was legal,” said rector Joaquín Goyache, accused in the case. “There is no doubt about the legality,” José María Coello of Portugal, vice-rector, added days later. One of those appearing, the UCM auditor, was clear in explaining that the only thing objectionable about the whole matter was an “administratively void” contract that Begoña Gómez had signed when it should have been signed by the rector’s office. And finally the economic vice chancellor, by Goyache’s delegation, settled the matter by authorizing the expense.

The Madrid courts will once again witness an extraordinary display of security due to Gómez’s statement. The dean, María Jesús del Barco, has once again allowed the wife of the President of the Government to access the headquarters by car through the parking lot to avoid exposing herself to the risks detected by the security department of the Presidency of the Government. Among others, the demonstrations called recurrently by the ultra-Catholic popular accusation HazteOir, which in addition to gathering a few dozen people with banners, usually hires buses and vans with posters and slogans urging the entry into prison of Begoña Gómez and Pedro Sánchez.

The extreme right has managed to take over the judicial scene of the Plaza de Castilla in the last appearances in which Begoña Gómez has taken advantage of her right not to testify. In addition to the HazteOir rallies, different people have managed to reach the door of the court or even record the wife of the President of the Government inside and in the corridors. Ultra agitators such as Vito Quiles or Jousé Cárdenas managed to access the judicial headquarters under the umbrella of popular accusations.

Juan José Güemes, accused

Judge Peinado has been investigating a broad case for months regarding the professional activity of Begoña Gómez since her husband became President of the Government. Both his work at the Africa Center of the Instituto de Empresa from that year 2018 to a relationship with the Complutense University that began many years before. The judge analyzes a wide range of suspicions put on the table by Clean Hands: from the fact that she received possible favorable treatment for living in La Moncloa to the fact that she could have given it to the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés.

For the moment, all those mentioned have denied having given favored treatment to Gómez for being married to Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón. From the rector of the Complutense and the University itself, who have explained verbally and in writing that he began working for them years before the motion of censure and that the master’s degrees and the professorship he managed were based on his resume, not because of his marriage. The last to deny the favorable treatment, and to have been charged minutes later, is Juan José Güemes.

A strong man in the economic leg of the Madrid governments of the PP and Esperanza Aguirre, Güemes is also called to testify this Wednesday as a director of the Business Institute that employed Begoña Gómez in 2018, shortly after the motion of censure led to her husband to La Moncloa. The former politician went as a witness to the Peinado court and was barely able to testify a few minutes before being charged because his statement conflicted with that offered by another IE worker.

“Begoña Gómez was not hired at the IE because she was the president’s wife,” Güemes said clearly. Shortly after, the judge cut off his statement and announced that he would call him to testify as a defendant, without explaining whether he would have to testify as a suspect of giving favored treatment to Gómez or of lying as a witness. A testimony that frontally attacks one of the unofficial lines of investigation opened by Judge Peinado: the Business Institute hired Begoña Gómez because of her resume and not because she was registered in La Moncloa.

These new ramifications of the case, which also include a Moncloa advisor who sent several emails on behalf of Gómez for his efforts with the Complutense, come after the Superior Court of Madrid has buried the possibility that Juan Carlos Peinado will be accused of prevarication by criminal means. Also after the Provincial Court has shielded its investigation by rejecting the vast majority of the appeals, leaving slight criticism of its management of the secrecy of the summary or sanctioning its insistence on the rescue of Air Europa.