This Tuesday, Begoña Gómez sent a letter to the judge investigating her in which she expressed her “impossibility” to testify next Monday in court because is invited to attend the G-20 summit in Brazil. The popular accusations brought forward in the case do not understand “what role” the wife of the President of the Government has to play in the world summit, and they have asked the judge Juan Carlos Peinado to maintain the summons and remove Gómez’s passport in case his lawyer does not confirm his attendance at the statement.
In October, the first lady of Brazil, Janja Lula da Silva, sent a letter to Gómez to invite her to the summit that will take place on the 18th and 19th of this month. A letter that Gómez’s lawyer, Antonio Camacho, attached to the letter sent to the Investigative Court number 41 of Madrid, where the proceedings take place. “Through this document we inform the court the impossibility of my client being able to attend the aforementioned day since he will be on an official visit to the Federative Republic of Brazil,” states the document written by Camacho.
Just one day after the letter arrived at the court, the popular accusations have reproached the judge that Gómez believes she “deserves different treatment than any citizen before Justice.” They consider that the investigated should have communicated “with maximum advance notice” of his possible absencewhich should be more justified. “He should give absolute priority to the judicial summons,” says the document of the accusations.
Gómez’s lawyer defended that Monday’s summons – in which the judge would notify the person under investigation of the extension of the case after admitting a new complaint – is not necessary. “No rule requires that the notification of the aforementioned complaint be personal,” explains Camacho, who he considers his client’s right to defense “safeguarded.”
To this allegation, the popular accusations respond that “if the person under investigation considered that she did not have to personally attend the judicial request could perfectly well have filed the appropriate appeal at the established procedural moment.” They go even further and, apart from asking that the request to annul the summons not be upheld, they ask the judge to withdraw the passport of the person under investigation.
In fact, the accusations highlight that Gómez’s presence in the G-20 can be conflictive. “Taking into account the crimes that are being analyzed [tráfico de influencias, corrupción privada y ahora también apropiación indebida e intrusismo]we could lead to affirming that it is counterproductive to allow this activity,” they state in their writing.
They add, in this sense, that the crimes being investigated “were committed within a framework of meetings and meetings that, classified as professional, were also institutional.” In these meetings, they conclude, “the investigator took advantage of them for his own business activity”, so “it is not at all unreasonable to affirm that he would open the possibility of criminal repetition“.
Having stated these arguments, the accusations ask the instructor Juan Carlos Peinado to force Gómez to go to court and to withdraw Begoña Gómez’s passport in case her defense does not confirm attendance at court.
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