The magistrate who is leading the case against Begoña Gómez has entered into the procedure several popular accusations linked to the extreme right: the complainants, Clean Hands, the Vox party and the lawyer and conspiracy youtuber Aitor Guisasola will be in charge of promoting the proceedings in the midst of Judge Peinado’s confrontation with the Prosecutor’s Office. The candidates to put the wife of the President of the Government on trial have paid bail of 10,000 euros each while other ultra organizations such as HazteOir or two political parties are lining up to be part of the case.
Clean Hands, the pseudo-union led by the far-right Miguel Bernad that has been unsuccessfully promoting massive criminal actions for more than a decade, was the one who filed the first complaint. Eight news stories about Begoña Gómez, one of them a hoax about a false subsidy, accompanied by WhatsApp messages from a journalist who signed some of that information.
“I think he should have resigned, there is a lot more evidence that will appear that not only incriminates her but also him.” These were Bernad’s words at the door of the Majadahonda courts on April 29, while Luis Rubiales was testifying inside and minutes after Pedro Sánchez announced that he was not leaving office after the opening of proceedings against the wife of him. A day later he presented in court a 17-page document titled “influence peddling from the La Moncloa palace” in which he provided documentation accessible from the Official State Gazette and the public sector contracting platform.
The summary also reveals that he continued to expand his complaint and that he even asked the instructor to take away Begoña Gómez’s passport because he could “take advantage of his international contacts to hinder and even destroy evidence.” The ultra organization spread his request but not the response it received from the judge a few weeks ago: “The claim is totally unfounded and crazy.”
On May 22, Clean Hands paid the 10,000 euros that the judge requested as a toll to be able to carry out the popular accusation. Vox also did so, appearing in a new case while the Supreme Court systematically rejects the complaints and complaints it files against members of the Government, Congress and pro-independence political leaders due to the amnesty law. With the case theoretically partially under secrecy, the parties – including Begoña Gómez’s defense – were able to access part of the proceedings “in order to preserve the principle of equality of arms.”
That same May 23, Clean Hands, already as a popular accusation and not only as a complainant, agreed to the only procedure that had been launched: the testimony of two journalists who came to court to defend the veracity of all their information. Statements in which they also denied having been aware of “any type of pressure” on the part of Begoña Gómez to award public contracts to specific businessmen, and recognizing that those letters of recommendation that are being investigated are “a frequent means in public adjudication.”
“I do what I can against this Government”
This documentation was also sent to another of the popular accusations that have paid 10,000 euros to be part of the process. The so-called Political Regeneration Movement of Spain led by Aitor Guisasola. A lawyer known for his YouTube channel where he has more than 400,000 followers. And where he has obtained 10,000 euros to be part of the process against Gómez, stating that he even has money left over that he will use in other processes in which, he says, he participates although at the same time he assures that he does all this work for free .
Guisasola and his Movement were accepted as a popular accusation in the trial on May 22, shortly after paying bail. Two days later, and with the investigation still under summary secrecy, the lawyer uploaded a video in which he released documentation of the case: the document in which the judge asked to analyze the hearings that the prosecutor made to the court. “I will be able to transmit to you what I can, obviously not what is secret,” he said shortly before asking for “a like” and publishing the document on the screen: “What they have notified us is tremendous.” The secrecy of the summary was not lifted until several days later.
In his daily life in court, according to the Judiciary database, Guisasola is a lawyer specialized in defending the interests of insurance companies. In his digital life, Guisasola presents himself as a lawyer who files criminal actions against the central executive with one objective: to overthrow the Government. “I try to do what I can against this Government,” he explained. in a video with 200,000 views. “We can is a big cancer,” he stated in another.
Guisasola was precisely the popular accusation in the failed Neurona case, which for three years investigated the accounts of Ione Belarra’s party before closing the case because it found no irregularities. He has also unsuccessfully denounced Pedro Sánchez himself before the Supreme Court, accusing him of embezzling public money in the presentation of one of his books. With two katanas, a Batman poster and a Star Wars helmet in the background, Guisasola presents himself as “a lawyer against demagoguery” while deploying a weekly battery of misleading headlines, photomontages and speculation: from questioning the judicial investigation of the terrorist attacks March 11, 2004 until telling his followers how to discover the identity of Dani Alves’ victim.
“It is not a question of conspiracies, it is that the official versions were obviously false,” he said about the Madrid massacre. He has also dedicated several videos to speculating that Begoña Gómez is transsexual, one of the common hoaxes of the extreme right and which has brought the conspiracy theorist Pilar Baselga to the bench. “Justice dictates the unconstitutionality of the amnesty,” a video was titled, although the law is not even in force. “The State is a mafia. The State should simply be there to guarantee security, health and education, period,” he said when he told his audience that the Treasury was demanding 33,000 euros from him for using money from a private pension fund to repay a loan.
“The issue is moving forward,” he explains in one of his videos and then comments that the Supreme Court has rejected one of his complaints. “To jail,” reads the image of one of his videos with a photo of Pedro Sánchez, a video in which he explains that, in reality, the Prosecutor’s Office has asked to reject one of his multiple complaints. In the document in which this lawyer requests the appearance in the case of Begoña Gómez, he provides an expert report from Gabriel Araújo, partner of the ultra agitator Luis ‘Alvise’ Pérez.
Two political parties and HazteOir
The list of popular accusations is expected to increase in the coming weeks. Two political parties without parliamentary representation have asked the judge to be part of the process, but for the moment they have not met the bail of 10,000 euros required transversally by the magistrate. One of them is the “Por Todos” party, chaired by lawyer María Girona, one of the heads of the animal rights section of the Illustrious Bar Association of Madrid (ICAM).
His party has asked the judge to reduce the amount of the bail as they do not have the money to pay it. A similar argument, as explained by the training, to that used in another case in which they exercise the popular accusation: the proceedings opened against the former Government delegate in Madrid for allowing a neo-Nazi demonstration in Chueca.
Another political party that is waiting to collect the 10,000 euros and be able to make its appearance in the coming days is Iustitia Europa, led by the lawyer Luis María Pardo and which is running in the next European elections. The lawyer, a former civil guard according to his website, affirms before the court that Begoña Gómez’s case could be related to the ‘Koldo case’ of fraud in the purchase of medical supplies during the pandemic. On his website, he adds that he could also be related to the ‘Pegasus case’ of espionage and has just filed a complaint in the Supreme Court against Santiago Abascal for meeting with Netanyahu.
During the pandemic, this lawyer represented the Liberum association, from which he is now separated. It is an anti-vaccine organization that unsuccessfully presented several appeals in the Constitutional Court to prevent the vaccination of children and the elderly and that is currently prosecuting the ‘Koldo case’, already trying twice without success to have the National Court call the wife of the president of the Government to testify.
After the acceptance of Vox, it remains to be seen the landing of the ultra-Catholic association HazteOir on the list of popular accusers in the case of Begoña Gómez. They were the first to present various complaints to the Prosecutor’s Office, both in Madrid and in Europe, as well as a complaint after the Manos Médicas complaint was admitted for processing. At the moment they have announced that they are going to request Gómez’s banking transactions and have announced a new complaint against Sánchez in the Supreme Court for embezzlement.
The opening of proceedings has received this week the partial endorsement of the Provincial Court of Madrid. The judges have rejected the Prosecutor’s appeal for the most part but have asked the magistrate to focus on the only aspect of the Manos Cleanas complaint that, in their opinion, surpasses the filter of mere speculation: the public awards to the UTE of businessman Carlos Barrabés.
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