The Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid has filed a complaint with the Madrid Courts of Instruction after having studied a document by José Luis Ábalos, former Minister of Transport and former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE during the mandate of Pedro Sánchez, in which he complains that there was an alleged revelation of secrets and personal data in the leaks of documents on the Koldo case. The prosecution’s complaint has been filed in Madrid’s 33rd court, according to judicial sources.
In a document to which Europa Press has had access, the prosecutor reports on “the filing of a complaint, which has been presented to the Dean’s Office of the Investigative Courts of Madrid, pending distribution”, after concluding the pre-trial investigation proceedings. Ábalos, attached to the Mixed Group of Congress after having been expelled from the PSOE, announced on July 24 that he was filing his complaint with the Attorney General’s Office to investigate the leaks of documents relating to the Koldo case that affect him and third parties with whom he has had a relationship.
At a press conference in Congress, the deputy of the Mixed Group and former Minister of Transport stressed that, at least for the moment, he still does not have the status of investigated in this judicial case and complained that these leaks have not been the subject of criminal reproach or investigation “by the person who must be the guarantor of the purity of the criminal procedure.”
In addition to “crimes that are indicative of the discovery and disclosure of secrets,” he also denounced the “failure to prosecute crimes,” that is, inaction in the face of these leaks.
The former head of the PSOE’s Organisation under Pedro Sánchez stressed that neither the Civil Guard nor the National Court investigating the case have taken any action to detect where the leaks are coming from, which are causing – he said – “enormous damage” to his personal and professional reputation.
In his opinion, these leaks have established a “state of exception of rights and the right to privacy no longer exists” not for people who have public relevance like him, but for others who “have nothing to do with it” and who, he complains, “have already been deprived of their rights to privacy and honour”.
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
In the document he submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office, Ábalos pointed out that data about his private life, such as trips or stays, are being disseminated “with systematic precision,” “the knowledge of which is obviously only possible through information gathered in administrative and police records.”
The MP stressed that these data have nothing to do with the facts being investigated by the Court headed by Judge Ismael Moreno and denounced that they are being published by media against which he already had open civil and criminal proceedings and that they are conducting “parallel trials that are being disseminated in a measured manner.”
All of this led him to conclude that an “uncontrolled investigation” was being carried out on him and he even suspected that it could have started before the judicial investigation began. Koldo case. Specifically, he pointed out that the investigation could have been initiated after he relieved a member of the Civil Guard in February 2020 when he made changes to the Ministry of Transport’s Emergency and Crisis Coordination Unit.
Ábalos stressed that the media that echoed that change are the ones that are publishing information now, that the investigators label the documents that are being leaked, giving them different levels of importance, that personal data is not erased from the documents and that they are not accompanied by a police report that “supports their possible relationship with the case.”
He also stressed that “it is obvious” that the dissemination of these documents “has been consented to.” “And the focus,” he added, “is on those who have the obligation to preserve this privacy, which are none other than the officials who have intervened in the investigation and those who have been its custodians.”
The former minister also asked the Ministry of the Interior to clarify whether the Security Forces are making enquiries about him or his family and to take statements from the agents of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard associated with the investigation.
During his appearance, Ábalos said that the leaks could also come from the parties involved in the case, but he did not point to them in his complaint. “I am referring to public officials, to no one else,” he said.
The judge of the National Court who is investigating the Koldo case has asked the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda for a certified copy of the internal audit that revealed a ministerial order signed by former minister José Luis Ábalos in the first purchase from the key company in the plot where the amount was doubled from four to eight million masks in a period of “just 38 minutes.”
The head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 2, Ismael Moreno, also requires in a ruling to which Europa Press has had access “the indication of the officials who proceeded to its preparation, commissioning the Judicial Police Unit in charge of this investigation to carry out this diligence.”
Audit of the ministry
That report, presented to the Senate by Minister Óscar Puente, indicates that one day before that order, on March 19, 2020, at the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, an estimate of four million masks was made for the first 15 days of the first state of alarm. It was a day later when Ábalos signed a new resolution to double that number, according to the report.
Judge Moreno has also asked the Public Prosecutor’s Office to report on whether it is appropriate to call the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, to testify as a witness in the case, following a request by the Liberum association, which is acting as a popular prosecution.
In a separate ruling, the magistrate accepted the association’s letter, which, among other things, stressed that Puente’s statement is necessary and useful for the proceedings in which several former senior officials of his department are being investigated.
Liberum specifically recalled that Puente stated that the dismissal of the Undersecretary of State for Transport, Jesús Manuel Gómez, occurred “as a consequence of the loss of confidence in him due to his procedural situation as a suspect in the present investigation proceedings.”
In this context, the association is requesting the minister’s testimony to declare on “the information and knowledge that the suspects had shared with him or that he could have had access to, regarding the facts that are the subject of these preliminary proceedings and their extensions, especially the involvement of Gómez García” and also of the former head of personnel at ADIF, Michaux Miranda, whose dismissal was also announced last Friday.
The alleged scheme that would have paid commissions to obtain contracts for the sale of masks during the pandemic is named after Koldo García, who was an advisor to Ábalos at the Ministry of Transport. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office accuses them of alleged crimes of criminal organization, money laundering, bribery, crimes against the Public Treasury and influence peddling.
#Prosecutors #Office #files #complaint #Ábalos #complaint #alleged #disclosure #secrets #due #leaks #Koldo #case