The judge of the Supreme Court, Ángel Hurtado, has stopped the attempt by Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner to collect and investigate the communications of the elDiario.es journalists who investigated and uncovered her case of double tax fraud. In an order, the magistrate launches more proceedings to try to recover the contents of the State Attorney General’s phone but rejects his request to collect the conversations that several journalists from this medium may have had with Álvaro García Ortiz or the rest of those investigated: “In no case can the request be granted, given their status as active journalists, and the impact that the measure could have on their professional secrecy, and the special protection that sources of information deserve,” answers the judge.
At the end of December, Alberto González Amador presented a series of requests for proceedings to find out who the attorney general or the provincial prosecutor of Madrid had spoken to on the phone or exchanged messages with in March 2024. In that list, Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner included the communications of four journalists from elDiario.es: the newspaper’s director and the three who signed the exclusive that uncovered her case of tax fraud. Most of them not related to the publication of his confession between March 13 and 14, the true object of the case.
Judge Hurtado, who will take a statement to the Attorney General on January 29 as an investigator, has agreed to launch some procedures related to Álvaro García Ortiz’s telephone number: request information from the Public Ministry about the internal protocols on data protection and the use of mobile phones or emails. All after the Civil Guard could not find messages on the phone seized during the October searches because García Ortiz had changed phones, according to the Prosecutor’s Office within the framework of a security protocol.
The order accepts some of these procedures but is categorical when it comes to refusing to collect information about the communications of journalists with those investigated, if they existed: “In no case, and whatever the result, will any procedure be accessed. which may affect journalistic secrecy,” he explains. Alberto González’s request for information also reached, among others, journalists Miguel Ángel Campos, from Cadena SER, and Cynthia Coiduras, from El Plural, who have testified in the case.
The accusations had also asked the judge to advance the line of investigation into Moncloa’s possible involvement in the matter, after Juan Lobato testified and delivered messages revealing that a Presidency advisor, Pilar Sánchez Acera, had had access to the businessman’s confession before it was published in full by a media outlet on the morning of March 14.
They had requested, among others, the statement of Francesc Vallés or Ion Antolín, then responsible for communication in the Government and the PSOE, but the judge leaves that decision for later: “Without prejudice to what the progress of the investigation may require, among which it is advisable to assess, previously, to what extent his taking a statement may be relevant in order to clarify the facts, which must be considered in a separate resolution.” The judge, therefore, does not close the door but affirms that for the moment he will not call these people linked to Moncloa and the PSOE to testify.
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