The former Minister of Transport and former organizational secretary of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, voluntarily appeared before the Supreme Court on December 12 to give a statement on suspicion of four crimes in relation to the Koldo case. During his appearance, to whose recording ABC has had access, he explained his departure from the Council of Ministers and the Ferraz leadership in terms of “loss of confidence”, given that he does not know the real reasons for his dismissal because the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez , he didn’t give them to them. «I can speculate, everyone speculated, but the president did not tell me any reason (…) On a private level he did not give me any the day the president summoned me to Moncloa to tell me that after a long trip together, this trip had concluded,” he declared to questions from investigating magistrate Leopoldo Puente. “I interpreted that dismissal as a loss of confidence and I understood that it was not possible to continue developing these tasks,” he added about his subsequent resignation as Secretary of Organization. Ábalos explained that after losing the ministerial portfolio, he understood that “it was not possible to continue developing those tasks” as number 3 of the party and that it had become “an obstacle” because it is a position “completely attached” to that of the general secretary. A week later he presented Sánchez with his resignation letter. Related News standard Yes The Supreme Court opens the way to withdraw Ábalos’ immunity upon seeing evidence of four crimes in the Koldo Nati Villanueva case. The interrogation, which began after ten in the morning, lasted for three hours in which the former minister denied any irregularity or criminal conduct on his part, using as a firewall his advisor, the also investigated Koldo García, and minimizing his relationship with the epicenter of the plot, the commission agent Víctor from Aldama. She stressed on several occasions that she did not have a “close” relationship with him, as Koldo seemed to have. In this sense, when asked about the rental contract with the option to purchase an apartment in Castellana that he signed with Aldama, he pointed out that it was Koldo García who told him that this possibility existed and that at that time, with the commission agent “he had no greater treatment” than having seen him a couple of times. “It is possible that they were gestures of rapprochement and it is true that Koldo’s relationship with Aldama was very close and I believe that in view of everything, of how things have been happening, so what Koldo relied a lot on Mr. Aldama, among other things because Koldo came from Navarra and Madrid knows him little. Aldama became a kind of crutch for many things,” he declared. The chalet in Cádiz: “I entrusted it to Koldo alone.” This was when the magistrate questioned him about the chalet in an urbanization in La Línea de la Concepción whose purchase Aldama managed through the company of an acquaintance and who was put to its disposal through a rental contract with option to purchase. «I had no idea about that. I entrusted it solely to Koldo and no one else. He didn’t inform me anything about how he did or didn’t do it. He informed me that he was in contact with the property. When he sent me the contract, I saw this company that I didn’t know or was familiar with and I asked as a precaution if it had anything to do with the ministry (…) and he told me no, that it was a new company that “he had no activity,” he explained. He stressed that he had sent him “many houses” as “examples” on the Internet to help him find vacation space to enjoy with his family on a rental basis and what happened to him was that, “a contract lease». «I was there three or four times in the entire time I was rented because my family circumstances varied enormously from when I thought about renting it to when the time came to move in. To begin with, my family didn’t like it and I also separated, with which all the plan I had disappeared and in case more was needed, I was dismissed as a minister so my financial forecast was no longer the same,” he argued. He had advanced 7,500 euros and he “felt bad about wasting” that money, so he stayed three times but had “problems” with the property. “My interlocutor was always Koldo,” he said. “I don’t have privacy, your honor.” There was also time for questions about the housing that Aldama paid through a partner to Jessica, a woman with whom the former minister had a romantic relationship. Ábalos clarified that it was an “extramarital” relationship and was uncomfortable having to talk about his private life, although the magistrate let him know that this detail that he was unaware of was not relevant to the case, as the dates are. . At this point, Ábalos replied: «I don’t have privacy, your honor, so don’t worry about that. “They have taken everything from me.” Six days after the statement, Judge Puente agreed to submit a request to the Congress of Deputies to suspend the immunity of the former minister and deputy after having found against him “sufficient evidence” of the possible commission of, at least, four crimes: integration into a criminal organization, influence peddling, bribery and embezzlement. The Commission on the Statute of Deputies unanimously agreed last Friday to give the deadline until next January 13 to Ábalos to present his allegations regarding the request. That same day, this body will meet again to approve its conclusions and submit them to the Plenary Session, which could vote on the request at the end of January.
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