The former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábaloscharged in the Supreme Court by the Koldo case, denies having “money, assets, or anything” abroad“neither directly nor through third parties”, and assures that “cash payments cannot be proven, because they did not exist.”
“What if I have funds in the Dominican Republic? What do I have to do with all that?” asks the former socialist leader in a telephone interview with The Country collected by EFE, in reference to the accusations of the considered commission agent of the plot, Victor de Aldama.
Ábalos, who will testify on December 12 in the Supreme Court as being investigated for alleged criminal organization, bribery, influence peddling and embezzlementpoints out that “in general, everything (Aldama) says is a lie” although “some things are true” because “for a story to be credible, you always have to tell some truth.”
Thus, he denies that he was going to keep an apartment on Paseo de la Castellana in exchange for giving public contracts to certain construction companies: “It’s all a lie. There was a tenant in the apartment. I don’t remember if I signed that contract. But it was impossible to materialize.”
The same about the enjoyment of a chalet in Cádiz, supposedly acquired by the plot: “I can prove that I have a rental contract, that I have paid the monthly payments from my account, that they evicted me, and that there are two Treasury inspections in 2022 and 2023 that proves it,” he says.
He also denies knowing anything about the hydrocarbon businesswoman Carmen Panowho declared to The Spanish having gone to the second floor of the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz Street in October 2020 to deliver two bags with 90,000 euros in cash in exchange for political favors.
Ábalos feels like the target of a “media sewer“and regrets having become “disposable material”, even involving his family in the middle. For the former minister in this process his privacy has been “burst” and his accusation “was predetermined.”
Justice is trying to unravel a network that supposedly profited from commissions on mask contracts awarded by public organizations, most of them dependent on Transportation, to the company Soluciones de Gestión in the middle of the pandemic for about 54 million euros.
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