Begoña Gómez will appear on Friday as a suspect for alleged crimes of influence peddling and corruption in business, which Judge Juan Carlos Peinado attributes to her based on a complaint from Manos Limpias. After three months under investigation, the wife of the President of the Government is appearing in court for the second time without knowing exactly why she is being investigated: in the first appearance, two weeks ago, Peinado informed Gómez that she had added a complaint from Hazteoír to the case, despite the fact that the judge himself had left these new accusations out of his investigation in an order issued on July 1.
Gómez’s days under investigation run parallel to journalistic reports in recent days questioning the services that the president’s wife provided to the Complutense University as director of a chair. Some of these facts were included in the Hazteoír complaint. The judge incorporated the ultra-Catholics’ complaint in mid-June, but two weeks later he ruled in an order: “The facts under investigation are all the acts, conduct and behavior that have been carried out by the person under investigation, since her husband was president of the Government of Spain, which are contained in the initial complaint.” [la de Manos Limpias que no aludía a la Complutense]”.
A document submitted by Gómez’s defence in the last few hours offers clues as to where Friday’s statement may lead. Gómez’s defence has asked to suspend the statement of two vice-chancellors who were summoned to give after Gómez. The lawyer Antonio Camacho states in the document that “it is not possible to understand and it is not made explicit (…) what contribution a vice-chancellor (…) and his predecessor in office can make with their statements to the facts that were being investigated before the referral to the European Prosecutor’s Office.”
The argument of the defence and the prosecution is as follows: if the judge himself insists that his investigation is limited to the Manos Limpias complaint and, from what was included in it, the Madrid Provincial Court left out the facts relating to the rescue of Air Europa, the only thing left to investigate is the contracts awarded to Juan Carlos Barrabés with EU funds. However, these contracts were referred by Judge Peinado to the European Prosecutor’s Office as it is the competent authority to investigate them. Therefore, the case of Peinado’s court is today empty and should be archived, according to the defence and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The same situation arose in the statement made on July 5. At the beginning, Peinado informed Gómez – he had not done so in writing before – that he had extended his investigation to a complaint filed by Hazteoír. The complaint referred to the alleged appropriation of software by Begoña Gómez that should belong to the Complutense University. However, after the admission of that complaint, the judge issued a reasoned resolution in which he insisted that he continued to act within the margins of the initial complaint by Manos Limpias.
It is a recurring procedural strategy that an accused person invokes his right not to answer questions from the popular accusations, in this case a group of far-right organisations with Vox at the forefront. On the other hand, the Prosecutor’s Office requested a few days ago, once again, the case to be closed, after two reports from the Civil Guard ruled out evidence of a crime in the events under investigation. If this scenario is followed, Gómez would only face the judge’s questions.
But what questions could Peinado ask Gómez, in his right not to testify before the judge, agree to answer? The defence considers that the extension of the case to the Hazteoír complaint, with the accusations against the Complutense, was rendered ineffective by means of an order from the judge himself. On the other hand, that complaint also referred to the alleged involvement of Begoña Gómez in the rescue of Air Europa. With a not insignificant objection, the higher authority than Peinado, the Provincial Court of Madrid, already determined that they were nothing more than “conjectures”.
Begoña Gómez’s statement comes two days after the Complutense University, through a written statement to the court, insisted on appearing in the case as a victim. In the same written statement, the teaching centre stated that it had not found any harm in Gómez’s conduct in her chair, but at the same time asked the judge to continue investigating. The Complutense complained that Begoña Gómez had taken more than two weeks, in the middle of the judicial process, to provide it with the information that an internal investigation of the university had requested.
The software of the chair
In accordance with the agreement signed with the Complutense for her chair, Begoña Gómez undertook the work to implement a software. El Confidencial revealed Gómez tried to get Indra, Google and Telefónica to assess the educational use that the software would have so that the Complutense would not pay for it. The three technology and communication giants undertook work that cost them 150,000 euros but abandoned the project.
Gómez subsequently registered the trademark for the computer application with a company that he created and owns 100%. The Complutense University claims that it was unaware of this situation, although sources close to the president’s wife deny this. They claim that all the formalities were carried out through the Complutense. The issue of the software would, in any case, remain outside the judicial investigation due to the order issued by the judge on July 1, in which he refers to the complaint by Manos Limpias.
The suspicions raised in the University’s document, which mentions the possibility of a crime of misappropriation, contrast with the content of the statement made by its rector as a witness on July 5, during which Joaquín Goyache did not reveal any indication of illegality on the part of Gómez.
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