The Madrid judge Juan Carlos Peinado, who has been investigating Begoña Gómez for more than seven months following a complaint from Manos Médicas that provided various press reports as evidence, continues to focus on scrutinizing each of the professional stages of the wife of the president of the Government.
His latest movements are focused on the time in which he directed the IE Africa Center, a private business school project to promote innovation on the African continent that Gómez joined after Sánchez landed at Moncloa. After finding no signs of irregularity in the relationship established in the IE with the owners of Globalia, owner of the company Air Europa, and which was later rescued by the Government in the pandemic; The judge is now investigating whether there are any irregularities in his signing for that private center.
This new line of investigation brought the IE director and former regional councilor of the PP in Madrid Juan José Güemes before the judge this Monday. He was summoned as a witness and ended up as a defendant after denying that he had given the order to hire Begoña Gómez because she was the wife of the President of the Government. Before the judge, who was one of Esperanza Aguirre’s strong men tried to explain that the hiring of Gómez had been due to his experience in the field of fundraising.
That, according to the judge, contradicts what was stated in court by another witness, the director of Human Resources of the IE, Sonsoles Blanca Gil de Antuñano. This directive pointed to Güemes as the person who had given the order to hire Gómez to direct the IE Africa Center. He assured that his salary amounted to 55,000 euros per year in 14 payments.
In a tense interrogation, Peinado even proposed a confrontation between both defendants. Finally, he agreed that the witness would return before the judge again, but accompanied by a lawyer. In an order, the judge limits himself to summoning him for next December 18, but does not specify either the facts that motivated his change of status or the crimes attributed to him on an indirect basis.
It is not the first time that Peinado accuses a witness after hearing their answers in court. He did it with the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, professor of the master’s degree that Gómez directed at the Complutense University and whom he has in his sights for his public awards in contracts related to innovation. And also with the rector of the Complutense, Joaquín Goyache, who in his two appearances denied having given favorable treatment to Gómez and disassociated himself from the creation of the chair that the wife of the head of the Executive co-directed on the Madrid campus. As in the Güemes case, the judge has not clarified what he is accusing them of.
In his latest resolution, the judge also charges against the aforementioned Gil de Antuñano. Thus, he orders that her testimony be referred to another court to investigate her for a crime of disobedience for “not responding” to a request made to her. However, it does not detail the content of that requirement either. When he took his statement last October, he asked him to justify with documents to which bank account the payroll that Gómez received was sent.
The accounts of Begoña Gómez
The judge’s latest move is not specifically linked to one of the multiple ramifications of the case, but it delves into territory that the judge had not yet crossed: Gómez’s assets. In the same ruling in which he accuses Güemes, Peinado requests information from the authorities about his bank accounts and about his marriage to Pedro Sánchez. Regarding the first, the judge goes to the Judicial Neutral Point and requests the list of bank accounts owned by Gómez. As for the second, ask the Civil Registry for the details of your marriage, which in practice gives access to information on whether you are in a marital or separation of property regime.
The judge does not explain why he charges Güemes nor why he requests this data. These are common requests for information when a court needs to investigate the assets of an investigated person, either to investigate their accounts or to make an inquiry in order to impose, for example, embargoes or bonds for a future trial. The case, in general terms, is based on suspicions of popular accusations that Gómez took advantage of her marriage to the President of the Government to boost her professional career.
The other ramifications of the case are, for now, moving at a slower pace. One of them is the one that analyzes whether the businessman Barrabés benefited from his relationship with Gómez by obtaining public contracts from the public company Red.es, something that for now has been denied by the various reports from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. . A former director of the company has even stated in parliament that Gómez’s letters supporting the project did not influence the award.
Another part of the research revolves around the two master’s degrees and the chair that Gómez directed at the Complutense University until this year. On the one hand, the judge is investigating whether the center gave favored treatment to Gómez for being Sánchez’s wife, something that for now both the witnesses and the accused rector have denied. More recently, he has opened a new separate piece to analyze a HazteOir complaint that accuses Gómez of having illegally appropriated software developed for his professorship.
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