Businessman Carlos Barrabés maintains his version before Judge Peinado and rules out irregularities

The businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés has maintained his initial version of events before the judge Juan Carlos Peinado and has denied any irregularity in his professional relationship with Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. According to legal sources, Barrabés has declared as an accused and, as he did when he was questioned as a witness on July 15, he has explained that he only met Sánchez in La Moncloa once. He did so, he said, within a series of interviews between the president and specialists in “innovation” and in a meeting in which the Secretary General of Economic Affairs and G20 was also present, without the wife of the socialist leader being present. The businessman has framed this meeting within his normal activity and has insisted that, throughout his career, he has met with representatives of different parties and public administrations.

This statement by Barrabés puts an end to the frenetic week experienced in the case promoted by Peinado, which investigates Begoña Gómez for influence peddling and corruption in business. On Monday the magistrate questioned one defendant – Joaquín Goyache, rector of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) – and two witnesses. On Tuesday, he went to the La Moncloa palace to try to take a statement from the President of the Government, although he invoked his right not to testify (because he is the husband of the defendant) and then filed a complaint against the judge for prevarication. The tension continued on Wednesday, when the head of the Executive appeared at a press conference and justified the complaint against Peinado: “The State Attorney’s Office has seen that rights have been violated,” he said.

According to legal sources present at Thursday’s statement, which lasted barely half an hour, Juan Carlos Barrabés only answered his lawyer’s questions and gave a story similar to the one he offered on July 15, when the judge questioned him as a witness – that is, with an obligation to tell the truth and without being able to exercise his right not to answer. Only four days after that first statement, he was charged. The businessman, who is seriously ill, appeared by video conference and said that it was common for political leaders and public officials to call him because he has a good name in the “innovation” sector.

Along these lines, Barrabés has stressed that the first major public tender was obtained with the Madrid City Council when it was led by Mayor Manuel Carmena (Más Madrid), and that this award was later renewed by the local Corporation already headed by José Luis Martínez-Almeida (PP). What’s more, two other contracts signed with the City Council have been extended just a few months ago (in December 2023 and April 2024) by Engracia Hidalgo, current Popular Party councillor for the Economy of Madrid and Secretary of Autonomous Policy in the Alberto Núñez Feijóo administration.

In his statement on July 15, Barrabés had explained that he went to La Moncloa several times to meet with Begoña Gómez, with whom he also met in his offices, after she asked him to help with a master’s degree she was taking at the Complutense. The businessman added that, on one of those occasions in La Moncloa, he briefly met with Sánchez, but that the meeting was short because he left to talk on the phone. He added that he did meet with the president on another occasion, in the framework of those interviews with innovation specialists, without the wife of the PSOE leader being present.

This Thursday, among other details, Barrabés stressed that it was his team, and not him personally, who managed the decision on which public tenders they applied for. The accused has stressed that his business group has hundreds of employees, according to legal sources present at the interrogation.

Barrabés’s status in the case has generated enormous controversy from the start. Although the magistrate focused from the beginning on his professional relationship with Begoña Gómez and asked to investigate the public contracts awarded to his companies, the judge called him to appear first as a witness – unlike Gómez, who was charged. The Prosecutor’s Office expressed its perplexity at this situation. In an appeal sent to the Provincial Court of Madrid, where it warned of the “procedural drift” of the case, the public prosecutor explained that Barrabés is “considered a witness” despite the fact that “the feeling is conveyed that he is the one under investigation, although it is not clear for what reason”, since the investigations “are pivoting around” his figure.

Finally, Judge Peinado signed his indictment on July 19. The Prosecutor’s Office criticized the judge for having changed his opinion “without any motivation” and with “generic references.” In fact, the investigating judge argued that the decision to indict him was based on two reports from the Civil Guard, which he already had when he questioned him as a witness – and which concluded that no irregularities were found in the awards to Barrabés’ companies – as well as on his own statement as a witness. An interrogation in which the judge did not interrupt the businessman at any time to warn him that he could be saying something that would incriminate him.