A report from the General State Intervention (IGAE), which depends on the Ministry of Finance, keeps in suspense the last line of investigation that remains open on box b of the PP, focused on the alleged donations of businessmen to the parallel accounting of the party in exchange for public awards. Judge Santiago Pedraz, instructor of the National Court, concluded these investigations on July 22, but before making that decision, he commissioned an analysis from two experts from that body that has not yet arrived. As confirmed by legal sources, once this document has been received and studied, the magistrate will decide whether to process the accused.
On June 28, Pedraz ordered to provide the two IGAE legal experts assigned to the case – numbers 37,608 and 36,088 – with the “records of the contracting of works and services” provided by the companies and public entities “since the reopening [en 2017] of this piece ”. The objective, as the magistrate then underlined, was for them to prepare a report “on the regularity in the processing of the files and the existence or not of deficiencies in the documentation and regulated evaluations for their resolution.” Among other awards, the investigators maintain under suspicion 23 contracts awarded during the second term of José María Aznar (2000-2004) to Constructora Hispánica, whose president, Alfonso García Pozuelo, was already convicted in the Gürtel case and he confessed to having made donations to the PP to get public works.
But Pedraz’s initiative, who assumed this line of investigation in 2021 after replacing magistrate José de la Mata at the head of the Central Court of Instruction 5, ran into an unexpected obstacle. Through a letter dated July 15, to which EL PAÍS had access, the IGAE responded that the two aforementioned legal experts were appointed years ago for this support task – one in 2013 and the other in 2014 – and they could no longer assume that role. “His professional situation has changed substantially […] and, therefore, also their availability to be able to assume the judicial assistance that is requested, making it compatible with their current professional obligations, “argued the body dependent on the Treasury, which asked the judge for more details of the adjudication files that it had to analyze to” assess the workload ”that implies and propose,“ where appropriate ”, new experts to assume it.
The judge later returned to pronounce on this approach of the IGAE. On September 28, Pedraz insisted that the address of technicians 37,608 and 36,088 be provided to him to send them the documentation since, “to date and for all intents and purposes, they have been appointed as judicial experts in this case.” But now, according to legal sources, they are waiting to see if they finally choose to appoint two new experts to take over the work and transfer their conclusions to the magistrate.
#report #Treasury #suspense #box #splashes #works #Aznar #era