The Court of Instruction 15 of Valencia has provisionally archived the case against the former vice president of the Valencian Government Mónica Oltra, of Compromís, who had been accused of allegedly covering up the sexual abuse of a minor committed by her ex-husband, Luis Ramírez Icardi, between the end of 2016 and early 2017. Oltra, who always maintained her innocence, was forced to resign in June 2022 after being investigated for cover-up along with 15 other senior officials and officials in her department. Now, the case has been archived because, after more than two years of investigation, the judge does not see “indications of the commission of any crime.” The resolution is not final and can be appealed.
The judge was investigating whether the former vice president (who was also the advisor for Equality and Inclusive Policies) and other members of her team maneuvered to hide or minimize the case of sexual abuse of a minor under guardianship that affected the ex-husband of the political leader. Ramírez Icardi was sentenced in the first instance to five years in prison in March 2021 and is now in prison after the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence last December. The 14-year-old victim of the abuse was housed in a juvenile center supervised by the Valencian Generalitat, which depended directly on the department directed by Oltra.
The head of the court even charged 15 people who were part of the Vice President's cabinet of the Generalitat between February and December 2017, when the minor reported the abuse while Oltra was vice president and counselor; and investigated the emails they exchanged between them. The popular accusation in this case was carried out by the association Gobierna-te, of the former leader of Vox Cristina Seguí, to which the extreme right party joined.
According to the order made public this Tuesday, the magistrate considers that there are no “indications of the commission of any crime.” “And this,” he continues, “even though in the initial complaint and complaint, legal-criminal qualifications were made in a merely provisional manner that are unsustainable in accordance with the proceedings.” The judge insists that “it has been reiterated ad nauseam that there is not a single indication that any order or instruction was issued from the management positions of the Ministry [de Oltra] “aimed at hiding the facts or discrediting the minor.”
The magistrate adds that, “once the investigation was completed, all those investigated had been heard, taking into consideration the statements of all the witnesses (and very particularly that of the victim herself), the copious documentation on file had been examined and the traffic of 48 emails had been examined. between those investigated and others, there remains no rational indication of any criminality against the accused.” For this reason, he points out, there is “no basis to issue a resolution of definitive judicial accusation” since “mere suspicions, conjectures or speculations about what happened, not supported by rational evidence, do not authorize this.”
The accusation had decisive consequences in the political career of Oltra, who resisted until the last moment to resign, but finally did so, under pressure from her partners in the Valencian PSOE and by the president of the Generalitat himself at that time, the socialist Ximo Puig. . Oltra resigned from her position in the Valencian Government, from her membership as a deputy and from all of her positions in Compromís. “I am not going to be your alibi to expel Compromís from the Government,” said the leader at the press conference in which she announced her resignation, after attributing it to “judicial and media infamy” that “will go down in history.”
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The former mayor of Valencia and leader of Compromís Joan Ribó then assured that Oltra was an “essential” person for the Valencian formation, although at that moment he had to take “a step aside.” “Sometimes, it is convenient to take a step to the side to move forward with more strength,” were his words almost two years ago. This Tuesday, after hearing the judge's order, Compromís has defended Oltra's “innocence and decency” and has maintained that his is a case of judicial persecution. The parliamentary spokesperson for the PSPV-PSOE, José Muñoz, has also expressed his satisfaction with the dismissal of the judicial case. And the spokesperson for Compromís in Congress, Águeda Micó, after celebrating her file, has invited the former vice president to return to the political front line if she so wishes. Oltra has been silent all day.
The current president of the Generalitat and leader of the Valencian PP, Carlos Mazón, has shown his “total respect for judicial decisions.” “In any case, I have said, I say and I will say that every day that passes without apologizing to Maite, the girl who suffered abuse with final sentences and still pending execution, is not acceptable,” he added.
From the state political level, the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, has shown her joy at the judicial file and has assured that the damage caused to Mónica Oltra is “irreparable”, both on a political and personal level. Several representatives of Mas Madrid have conveyed their affection to him: “Today the good guys win,” said the spokesperson for the group, Manuela Bergerot.
In the afternoon, at the doors of the Valencian Government headquarters, about 60 people – Oltra's chief of staff, Miqel Real, also accused in the case now dismissed, have gathered spontaneously to celebrate the filing of the case, while They have reiterated that the former vice president has the doors of the training open if she decides to return. Carles Esteve, deputy of Compromís in the Valencian Cortes, present at the rally along with other party colleagues, has referred to the 96 pages of a judicial order “that says that there is nothing, other than what the former vice president said in parliamentary headquarters It was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” And he has considered that “what these pages demonstrate is that the right and the extreme right have needed to cover themselves with a lie in order to win the elections.”
Object of PP attacks for two years
The national leadership of the PP and also the regional leadership repeatedly demanded the resignation of Mónica Oltra after the opening of judicial proceedings in 2021. In December of that year, the then national president of the PP, Pablo Casado, used Oltra's case to attack the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in a control session: “What is the purpose of a Government that leaves the most disadvantaged stranded? To the girls under the socialist government of the Balearic Islands who were prostituted and refuse to investigate it, to the minor abused by Mónica Oltra's husband while the socialist government hid it,” Casado snapped.
After Oltra's resignation in June 2022, the leader of the Valencian PP, Carlos Mazón, took the opportunity to attack the socialist president Ximo Puig, Compromís' government partner in the Generalitat, for not having dismissed her. “For too long Puig has not assumed any responsibility or made any decision on a matter that is abominable, and finally Oltra has had to be the one to decide it for him,” he criticized in those days. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, already national president of the PP, elaborated in the same direction during a visit to Valencia in October of that same year: “If Oltra had been in my Government I w
ould have fired her immediately,” he said, making it ugly that the politician “resigned when wanted.” Feijóo denounced that the Compromís leader's situation was unsustainable “due to her family, personal and political situation.”
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