The Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors (APIF), appearing as a popular accusation in the investigation of the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, has requested that the investigated person be called to testify and that he be charged with two new crimes: “illicit seizure of information” and “prevarication.” In a document presented by the association’s lawyer, Juan Antonio Frago, the APIF also asks Judge Ángel Hurtado to request from the Prosecutor’s Office “the data deletion protocols” of the institution.
Since the Supreme Court in mid-October charged the attorney general for allegedly revealing confidential procedural information about Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner, Alberto González Amador, the investigations of the judge in charge of the case have advanced in a single direction. Instructor Hurtado, who has not yet taken a statement from García Ortiz or any of the journalists who leaked the information (they will testify in January), has focused on collecting information from electronic devices of prosecutors related to the alleged leak.
The dump of the mobile phone of the provincial chief prosecutor of Madrid, Pilar Rodríguez, revealed that García Ortiz had ordered the collection of emails exchanged between González Amador and the prosecutor who was investigating him for tax fraud. He revealed the attorney general’s interest in denying information about the agreement that Ayuso’s boyfriend and the Prosecutor’s Office were reaching; and according to the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, it revealed that the attorney general could have had a “preeminent participation” in the commission of the crime.
The dumping of García Ortiz’s phone, on the other hand, had a very different result, since the Civil Guard found “0 messages” exchanged in the days in which the leak was created, between March 8 and 14 of this year. . After all these steps have been carried out, the accusation carried out by the APIF has reached several conclusions, which are now presented to the investigating magistrate.
Firstly, from the conversations extracted from the telephone of the chief prosecutor of Madrid, the popular accusation deduces that “a statement must be taken” from García Ortiz because the leak “can only come from the person being investigated.” But the APIF believes that the proceedings carried out point to the attorney general not only as the author of a crime of revealing secrets; There are also indications that García Ortiz has committed “illicit seizure of information” and “prevarication.”
The association of prosecutors points out that García Ortiz and Pilar Rodríguez did not have the leak at their disposal until shortly before it was leaked. When the newspaper El Mundo published that the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office had offered a compliant agreement to Alberto González Amador, the attorney general was quick to demand the communications between the alleged fraudster and the prosecutor who was investigating him, Julián Salto.
After obtaining them, the next day he ordered the publication of a press release clarifying that it had been González Amador’s lawyer who proposed the agreement. The question is whether the night before, before publishing the note, he leaked the emails to some media.
On the night of March 13, there was a “frantic exchange of emails and calls” so that these documents reached García Ortiz. On this matter, the APIF indicates that, “just like the president of the CGPJ or a president of the Chamber of the Supreme Court, they cannot request by WhatsApp or by calling a magistrate documentation of a judicial case so that they end up sending it to an email not corporate, the state attorney general does not have at his disposal all documentation of all national cases ‘in bulk’ or without any control“.
So this popular accusation considers that García Ortiz committed a crime of “illicit seizure of information” when he “broke the rest or free time” of Julián Salto – who that night was watching a soccer match – to demand “documentation” from him. sensitive via WhatsApp”.
But in the eyes of the APIF, the operation not only represented this latest crime, but it was also a prevaricating act. “If a magistrate asked another judicial body for a case, of course should be formally documented“, exemplifies the writing, and then delves into the need to carry out administrative acts “in writing” and providing “an electronic signature.” The way in which García Ortiz obtained González Amador’s emails is “insurmountable”: a through “calls and WhatsApp messages clearly outside of working hours”, without any “subsequent evidence” and finally with the “subsequent deletion of the WhatsApp messages” from Álvaro García Ortiz’s mobile phone.
This erasure, the association continues, is “incriminating evidence if there is one”. Precisely for this reason, the APIF requests the investigating judge to request from the Public Prosecutor’s Office “the data deletion protocols that exist from storage terminals, which include mobile phones and computers of all kinds, private or corporate, of the members” of the Prosecutor’s Office. In addition, it demands that you ask “if any competent authority has been informed of the security breach of the data, or if any type of action has been carried out in this regard”.
Finally, the association, represented as a popular accusation, urges the judge to order an extension of the UCO report. It proposes to include, among other information, “a list of incoming and outgoing calls from Álvaro García Ortiz and Pilar Rodríguez’s cell phones” and his contact list, to see if the telephone numbers of the journalists whom the investigating judge has summoned to testify are included. The APIF also demands that it be determined “if” the attorney general’s messages or “deleted emails” can be recovered, through “applications such as Cellebrite or any that the UCO uses.
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