García Ortiz defends before the Board of Prosecutors that he will not resign and eight of the thirty attendees ask for his departure

The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, met this Thursday with the Board of Court Prosecutors, his main advisory body, to explain his decision to continue in his position after the Supreme Court has opened a case against him for revelation of secrets after the complaint by commission agent Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

In an intervention that lasted less than half an hour, García Ortiz denied having leaked any emails and defended that he is convinced that remaining in his position is the best for the institution. It has been a merely explanatory or informative meeting, in which no vote has taken place on the continuity of the highest representative of the Public Ministry.

Yes, there has been a turn of interventions, in which around twenty of the 30 attendees – all courtroom prosecutors, the highest category of the career – have taken the floor. Of them, eight have expressly stated that the most appropriate thing would be the resignation of the attorney general, according to the sources consulted by elDiario.es. Furthermore, three other interventions have been confusing, with appeals to the complicated situation to which this matter leads to the race; and a dozen interveners have unequivocally supported García Ortiz.

The Supreme Court decided this Wednesday to open a criminal case against the attorney general for the leak of emails in which González Amador admitted having defrauded more than 350,000 euros. For the first time in history, a court will investigate the leadership of the Prosecutor’s Office for a crime of revealing secrets and will do so for a case that started with a hoax from the mobile phone of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, right-hand man of the president of the Community of Madrid.

Following the High Court’s decision, García Ortiz announced that he would not resign and summoned the main bodies of the race to explain his decision and listen to their comments. This Board of Court Prosecutors, held this Wednesday morning at the headquarters of the State Attorney General’s Office, was attended by 30 of its 35 members.

The first intervention was that of García Ortiz, who has defended his continuity in office as the least burdensome and most prudent for the institution in the medium and long term. He has also defended that among the functions of the Prosecutor’s Office is to report on relevant matters to guarantee the right of citizens to receive truthful information.

Then came the interventions of the prosecutors. Eight have advised him that he should leave his position to preserve the image of the institution. Among those critical voices are those of the four prosecutors of the process—Javier Zaragoza, Consuelo Madrigal, Fidel Cadena and Jaime Moreno—who have maintained an open confrontation with García Ortiz practically since his arrival at the top of the Public Ministry.

At the time, these prosecutors also took a stand in favor of investigating González Amador’s complaint, which ended up leading to the opening of a case against García Ortiz. They have also defended that the computer crime prosecutor, Elvira Tejada, should resign; and the Supreme Court prosecutors Antonio Narváez, José Javier Huete and José Miguel de la Rosa.