The Senate still cannot locate the former CEO of Globalia Javier Hidalgo, already summoned on two occasions to appear in the investigative commission being followed in the Upper House on the Koldo case and its derivatives. For this reason, its president, the popular senator Eloy Suárez, has decided to summon him again for next November 29. And, this time, the third time, through a “penal edict.”
That is, your summons will be published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), a means by which the businessman “it is considered notified” and if he does not go to the commission he would be committing a crime of disobedience “covered in article 502 of the Penal Code,” say PP sources.
It was last October 10 when the Senate investigation commission approved calling Hidalgo for Thursday, November 7, a summons that could not be delivered. And he was summoned again for the 22nd of this month.
Then, the PP, with a majority in the Upper House, accused the Ministry of the Interior of being “incapable” of sending the summons to the businessman and registered a document in the Senate demanding that the Government of Pedro Sánchez collaborate to find his whereabouts. Specifically, in addition to Fernando Grande-Marlaska’s department, he addressed the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Industry and Tourism in case Hidalgo had escaped from Spain.
Now, “due to the lack of collaboration from the Government,” says the PP, they are summoning Hidalgo again for next Friday, November 29, by edict, the aforementioned notification through publication in the BOE. “This is the first time this has happened in democracy,” point out the same sources, who warn that if on this occasion the businessman does not attend the appointment “he would be committing a crime included in article 502 of the Penal Code.”
Said article establishes that “those who, having been legally required and under warning, fail to appear before a commission of investigation of the Cortes Generales or of a Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Community, will be punished as prisoners of the crime of disobedience«.
The PP also recalls that the same article provides that “anyone who is summoned before a parliamentary commission of inquiry and fails to be truthful in his testimony will be punished with a prison sentence of six months to one year or a fine of twelve to twenty-four months.”
As this newspaper reported on November 7, sources close to Hidalgo assured ABC that he is “reachable by phone” and willing to appear when notified accordingly. They then explained that, for work reasons, the businessman travels around the world and also recalled that already attended in person to the National Court to testify as a witness in the Koldo case last September.
The popular ones link Javier Hidalgo, a shareholder of Globalia, along with Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, in the rescue of the Air Europa company during the pandemic.
In this regard, the summary of the Koldo case, the alleged scheme of illegal commissions in public contracts of purchasing masks during the pandemic, revealed that the relationship of the commission agent Víctor de Aldama with the former Minister of Transportation José Luis Ábalos and his advisor Koldo García was key for the Government to grant 475 million public funds for the airline. This was concluded by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard as a result of the conversations found on the electronic devices of those investigated.
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