The former president of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, will not be investigated for prevarication and embezzlement of public funds for the elimination of 135 beds in the Puerta de Hierro hospital, in Majadahonda, despite the fact that the regional administration continued to pay one million a year. This has been decided by Mónica Aguirre de la Cuesta, the head of the Court of Instruction number 53 of Madrid, based in the Plaza de Castilla. The car also exonerates the then Minister of Health, Juan José Güemes, and the Deputy Minister of Health Assistance, Ana Sánchez Fernández from criminal responsibility. The judicial decision can be appealed in reform or appeal.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office had requested on November 10 that these politicians be investigated, after having shown that 135 beds had been removed from the future Puerta de Hierro hospital with the intention that there would only be one patient per room. That happened in 2008, months before the inauguration of the new center in Majadahonda, when Esperanza Aguirre visited the works. Immediately, it was necessary to remove “A hospitable bed [extra], the bedside table, the patient chair, the companion chair and the dividing curtain ”. However, this did not lead to a reduction in the bill paid by the Ministry of Health to the hospital concessionaire. The bill included those beds for which there was an annual outlay of 1.3 million.
Magistrate Aguirre de la Cuesta maintains in her car that in the investigation of the case it has not been shown that the order to remove the beds came directly from Esperanza Aguirre: “From the statement given by the only investigated María Elena de Mingo [directora general de Planificación, Infraestructuras y Equipamiento de Sanidad de la Consejería] it does not appear that the resolution on the reduction of the number of beds came directly from the Presidency of the Community of Madrid ”. The same resolution is adopted with respect to Juan José Güemes and Ana Sánchez. The fact that they were the most responsible for the health area “does not justify the attribution of the status of being investigated,” according to the court ruling.
Domain of the fact
The judge uses the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, which has reiterated in various judgments that in “a complex hierarchical organization or structure” the most responsible may not have knowledge of all the acts. In order for them to be investigated, it is necessary that those responsible (in this case, Aguirre, Güemes and Sánchez) have directly carried out the crime that is accused: “We are talking about the principle of guilt for the act itself. Any trial of authorship requires that the person to whom criminal responsibility is attributed has carried out the typical action himself or, in the cases of co-authorship, have the functional control of the fact “, according to an order of the High Court of December 21, 2020 .
It also adds the order of the Supreme Court to dismiss the complaint of Vox against the dismissal of Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos as head of the Civil Guard Command in Madrid and the lack of responsibility of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska: ” The only thing proven is that whoever ordered the cessation of the administrative authority to which the competence corresponded to do so, without having any evidence of the intervention of the minister in said decision, even though he may agree with it “
The order, dated November 17 and notified to the parties today, states that the former general director of Economic Management and Purchase of Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Products, Jesús Alejandro Vidart Anchia, is being investigated. To do this, he makes an appointment for next December 20 at 10.45.
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