The alleged perpetrator of the ‘Koldo case’, businessman Víctor de Aldama, assured during his statement to the Supreme Court on December 16 that he delivered 10,000 euros per month to former minister José Luis Ábalos and his then advisor, Koldo García, “in good faith” and given the promise of a “future benefit” in the form of public works contract awards. He said this in his statement lasting about two and a half hours, to which the Europa Press agency has had access, in which Aldama pointed out that these were figures of a “laughable” amount when they are talking about the compensation for those contracts that he could receive were “millions of euros.”
“I’m going to explain it to you very easily so that you understand it. “I am a businessman,” he snapped at the investigating judge of the ‘Koldo case’ in the Supreme Court, Leopoldo Puente. “They were already very clear about how they were going to make, let’s say, those projections, okay? Those projections or those awards, and it’s very simple (…) Like any businessman in this country, when you start a company or start a company, it can go well or badly. It was my risk. “I was taking a risk in an entrepreneurial business,” he explained.
The businessman then clarified that this payment did not lead directly to any instant compensation, but the risk was worth it considering who he was giving those amounts to. “Not just anyone was asking me, the advisor to the Minister of Transportation was asking me,” he recalled. Although at first it was Koldo García who received those 10,000 euros per month, “then there were times when Ábalos was present.” “And then there were moments in which Mr. Ábalos, both at his home in El Viso, which is the house assigned to him by the Ministry, and in the Ministry’s office, was given money,” he added.
Aldama also acknowledged that for his participation as a promoter he would have pocketed “about five and a half million” euros. Continuing with the alleged deliveries of money, the magistrate asked him about the alleged payment of 15,000 euros that would have been paid to the current Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán. “This is because one of the companies that was bidding for one of the works in the Basque Country was one of the companies that we were managing at that time,” he said.
“He entered the Ministry without any control”
The businessman was also asked about the list of alleged public works awards in which there would be notes that, according to the businessman, could be from Ábalos or his former advisor. “It is a list that comes in ministry format and that Mr. Koldo gives me in his office,” he said. Aldama boasted of his ancestry within Transport, when Ábalos directed it. “In the end a trust was created, there was an entry and exit from the ministry. I entered without any type of control, because my vehicle license plates were authorized, and I entered through the area where the minister enters, in fact, I went up to the main floor through the minister’s elevator,” he explained.
That trust that Aldama alluded to was also reflected in other types of actions that he allegedly carried out in favor of Ábalos, specifically as a result of the “extramarital” relationship that the minister had with a woman. The businessman maintained that he was asked “if he could pay” for the apartment that this woman occupied in Madrid. “We were having dinner at the restaurant in front of his (Ábalos) house. Well, talking a little about his personal situation with his then wife, well, the topic came up and I told him yes, there was no problem,” he indicated.
Precisely speaking of apartments, De Aldama referred to the rental of one located on Atocha Street in Madrid through a page of temporary leases that he himself paid for and to which Ábalos, Koldo García and the current minister Ángel Víctor Torres would have attended along with others. people. “It is an apartment that had been rented for a moment,” explained Aldama, who was asked about the reason for renting itself. “Well, there were a series of young ladies on the floor,” he answered, causing them to ask him for more details about that meeting. “I wouldn’t like it. I think it is understood. There were a series of ladies on the floor with some gentlemen… I would like to leave it… I mean, I think it was very explicit,” he apologized.
In this context, Aldama was also asked if his influence reached “even within the PSOE and the Ferraz headquarters.” “Well, my influence, I think it has been proven, reached further. “They sent me to Venezuela as almost Foreign Minister to negotiate a matter with Mr. Guaidó,” he answered, referring to the then self-proclaimed president in charge of Venezuela.
Ábalos’ statement
This Thursday the recording of Ábalos’s own statement in the Supreme Court on December 12 also came to light. The former minister maintained that it was the current Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, who proposed Koldo García as his “24 hour” driver, after the turbulent 2016 primaries that returned control of the formation to Pedro Sánchez, to undertake the mission to “bring together the match.” “He took me, he brought me and in some way he took care of me,” he said about the man who ended up being his ministerial advisor.
When asked by the magistrate, the former minister explained that he met Koldo “on a couple of visits to Navarra” during the socialist primaries of 2016. “There is a long internal campaign, with a lot of mobilization. I coordinated that campaign. With another partner, Adriana Lastra, we toured the entire national territory and, of course, Navarra was there,” he recalled. Specifically, he located that first meeting in an event held at the beginning of 2017 in Aldea Nueva del Ebro. “The other time I saw him at another event, also in Navarra, always in the presence of Santos Cerdán,” he specified.
Ábalos explained that the then leader of the Navarrese socialists and now ‘number three’ of the PSOE had a “prominent” role in the organization of that campaign for the primary elections. Until that moment, he assured, he had not seen Koldo García because his political career had been limited to Valencia. It was not until that internal struggle that he began to have “some display of national political action.” Until time passed, he did not see him again, he indicated.
Asked about how he ended up appointing him as his advisor in the Ministry of Transport in 2018, Ábalos said that being already Secretary of Organization of the PSOE “the party had to be put together” because the primary process “had been a bit traumatic”, given that “the majority of the institutional organic positions had opted for the candidacy that he lost.” “Therefore, it was necessary to rebuild the game. I had to move around Spain a lot and I was looking for a driver who was available 24 hours a day all week, because the drivers we had at the party headquarters had work limitations and we needed him, in addition to being a worker, to have a commitment militant (…) Then this person was proposed to me,” he said.
When asked by Puente who recommended Koldo to him, Ábalos replied: “Santos Cerdán proposed it to me.” After that, García traveled from Pamplona to “do this work.” “He took me, brought me and somehow took care of me. And, when I become a minister a few months later, (…) I have the availability to name five advisors and, in gratitude, in recognition of the time he had been with me, giving me all his personal assistance, because among those five I tell him that continue to be with me,” he explained.
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