The Supreme Court buries Vox’s accusations against Illa for the purchase of medical supplies during the pandemic

The Supreme Court has rejected the complaint with which Vox asked to charge Salvador Illa for emergency contracts and purchases of medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic. The judges reproach the far-right party for having tried to avoid the decision of a Madrid court to archive the case a few months ago and rule out that the then Minister of Health and today President of the Generalitat of Catalonia incurred crimes of prevarication, embezzlement and fraud in emergency contracts that exceeded 623 million euros.

Santiago Abascal’s party has been trying for several years to bring senior officials of the Government and different public administrations to trial for emergency contracts and massive purchases of masks and other health supplies during the first months of the pandemic. One of his many judicial initiatives consisted of denouncing those responsible for the National Institute of Health Management (INGESA) and the National Health Service for fifteen contracts to acquire, urgently and after the declaration of the State of Alarm, protective material. such as masks, hydroalcoholic gel or PPE.

The court archived the case in February of last year after more than three years of investigation and Vox then decided to take its accusations to the Supreme Court. A month later, the far-right party filed a complaint against Salvador Illa before the Criminal Court, accusing him of exactly the same crimes and the same facts: “irregular hiring” worth more than 623 million euros. Also adding that the National Court, within the framework of the ‘Koldo case’, was also investigating possible illegalities in pandemic contracts of other departments such as the Ministry of Transport.

It was the Prosecutor’s Office that alerted the Supreme Court of what Vox did not say in its appeal: that a Madrid court had already endorsed these purchases and had refused to maintain the accusation against the senior officials of INGESA and the SNS who had been charged for several years. Vox’s complaint against Illa, the Supreme Court reproaches, actually sought to combat the closure of the case in the Madrid court, which closed the case after “a lengthy and exhaustive investigation.” If they disagree with the court’s decision, the Criminal Chamber reminds us, it is something that they must exercise with appeals before the Provincial Court of Madrid “and not by filing a complaint.”

The Madrid court that analyzed and filed the case endorsed that, in those first months of the pandemic, public administrations resorted to emergency procedures covered by the health emergency. The purpose of the contracts that also passed the filter of the Court of Accounts, said that order, “was directly linked to the adoption of measures to address the health situation caused by COVID-19 and the benefits acquired pursued the achievement of said purpose.” Everything was adjusted, according to the court, to the decrees that regulated the health emergency. “The emergency processing was in accordance with the law,” he concluded.

Vox’s objective, as the party explained when it announced the complaint, was not only for Salvador Illa to be charged where a court had not found a crime: it was also for this case to be mixed with the ‘Koldo case’, which it was then investigating exclusively. the National Court and which is now also being analyzed by the Supreme Court due to the possible involvement of former minister José Luis Ábalos. They asked that the reports from the Central Operational Unit incorporated into that case be added to the case.

The facts that Vox already reported before the court are “essentially” the same ones that it later brought before the Supreme Court. That court, the high court now adds, also found “no indications of responsibility” in the actions of the then minister. If he had done so, they add, “a reasoned explanation would have been ordered” and it was not done. The Prosecutor’s Office at all times denounced that Vox’s accusations in this matter were based on “mere conjectures.”