The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz has decided to reject for processing the complaint filed by the Popular Party for crimes of bribery, influence peddling and illegal financing against the PSOE, understanding that “something more” is required than the mere publication of a information to pass the filter and trigger a judicial investigation. The PP may, however, bring public prosecution in the case under bail of 10,000 euros.
In an order notified this Monday, Pedraz thus assumes the criteria of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which took a position against the admission of the complaint due to lack of foundation, since it is based on a news report according to which an alleged unidentified businessman would have taken up to 90,000 euros in bags to the PSOE headquarters.
As the instructor explains, “in general, news in itself does not legitimize any popular actor to convert the journalistic story into a story of punishable events triggering criminal proceedings. Something more is needed.” And, in his opinion, “that ‘something more’ as follows from reading what has been reported does not occur in the present case, since from what has been done to date in this case there does not appear any connection with what was reported.”
“The anonymous complaint is fully valid to initiate an investigation, provided ‘that the information is supported by corroborating data, or they themselves function as a confirming element for others, without the need to reveal the identity of the informant,'” recalls the magistrate. citing the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.
It adds that “such information must be supported by some data, fact or circumstance of knowledge that serves to delimit a typical conduct and its attribution to the accused person” and as the Second Chamber of the high court already said, “the popular action, concludes the Chamber Second, “it cannot degrade the relevant role it is called upon to play in the criminal process by limiting itself to turning news into criminal cases.”
The Popular Party went to court after the publication of information in the digital media The Objective of an interview with an individual who, under anonymity, claimed to be a businessman and close to the commission agent in the Koldo case, who was also investigated in a hydrocarbon fraud scheme. Victor de Aldama.
He maintained that he had taken two bags to the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz Street in Madrid with 90,000 euros in cash in total and linked him to that plot that Judge Pedraz is investigating regarding this million-dollar fuel fraud, the same one for which Aldama and his partner in that business, Claudio Rivas, are in provisional prison.
The complaint was also directed against both of them, as well as against the former advisor to the Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García, since in addition to the alleged denunciation of that businessman, the UCO of the Civil Guard has stated in a report that Aldama maneuvered through him so that his partner could get meetings in the Ministries of Industry and Energy Transition in which to request a hydrocarbon operator license.
«Contradictions of anonymous whistleblowers»
The magistrate, however, emphasizes that “contradictions even appear from the anonymous complainants”, something that the Anti-Corruption report warned about. It refers to the fact that the maneuver that appears in that UCO report was to obtain a meeting at the Ministry of Industry through its then Chief of Staff, when the operator licenses depend on the Ecological Transition portfolio. It was there, according to the whatsapps intercepted in Aldama, where that meeting took place in 2021, when his claim was finally rejected. They would not get that license until 2022.
“Therefore, the complaint should be inadmissible, but obviously without prejudice to the fact that if something else were followed during the investigation, we would act accordingly,” concludes the instructor.
It admits, however, the appearance of the PP, which may also bring charges in the hydrocarbon case, as it already does in Central Court number 2, where the Koldo case is being heard. Clean Hands, HazteOir and Vox enter with the same conditions.
Aldama will remain in prison
In parallel, the judge has issued an order that keeps Aldama in provisional prison because he considers that his arguments for appealing do not distort the underlying reasons that led him to jail: that “there are sufficient reasons to believe the person under investigation is responsible for the crime” and The measure is timely to prevent it from obstructing the action of justice.
“What is found in the records still needs to be analyzed,” recalls Pedraz, to emphasize that “a significant part of what was defrauded (73,902,852.60 euros) could have been transferred to accounts abroad and it is necessary to proceed with its location and blocking, as well as the determination of the laundering operations allegedly carried out, measures that would be frustrated or, at least, difficult if the person under investigation were free.
He also rules out that the legal periods of detention were exceeded with him, since this “was police” and Aldama ended up in court “within the legal period.”
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