As the Supreme Court session drew to a close, prosecutors seemed to have lost interest in asking questions. In the courtroom where the state attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, is being tried for revealing secrets, the last summons of the day appeared, three journalists from this newspaper. The procedure was completed in a few minutes. Three hours earlier there had been the most tense interrogation of all recorded so far, even with an information professional as a witness. The public prosecutor’s lawyer, Gabriel Rodríguez-Ramos, attempted to corner José Manuel Romero, deputy director of EL PAÍS, in March 2024, when the facts under consideration by the Supreme Court occurred. He constantly interrupted him and demanded that he answer his questions with a yes or no, with no room for further explanation. Romero was not discouraged, he persisted in his arguments and the discussion intensified. Until the president of the court, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, warned the lawyer:
—This is not a judgment on journalism.
The fourth hearing in the first-ever trial of a state attorney general ended Tuesday with some signs of reluctance toward the charges. Smiles appeared up front and in defense. The balance of the eight testimonies collected was favorable to García Ortiz’s arguments. Both journalists from EL PAÍS and Miguel Ángel Campos, from Cadena SER, stated that they learned that the lawyer of Alberto González Amador, boyfriend of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, had recognized his fraud against the Treasury to negotiate an agreement with the Madrid Economic Crimes Prosecutor’s Office long before this information was sent to the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Their testimonies reinforce those released last week by two editors of elDiario.es and one from La Sexta.
For the defense, the statements of two prosecutors also sounded like heavenly music, especially that of the data protection officer at the top of the public prosecutor’s office. The latter, Agustín Hidalgo, said that it is advisable to periodically eliminate the electronic devices of race participants to avoid “security gaps”. Exactly García Ortiz’s argument to justify the deletion of the history of his electronic communications.
The accusations did not benefit much even from one of their witnesses, Eugenio Ribón, dean of the Madrid Bar Association, who participated in the case as a popular action. Ribón criticized the “unusual gravity” of the note issued on March 14, 2024 by the Prosecutor’s Office to refute the falsehoods of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, chief of staff of the president of Madrid, and to report on the offer of González Amador’s lawyer to negotiate an agreement. That note was the origin of the first proceeding opened at the Superior Court of Madrid, but the Supreme Court later ruled out that there was any criminal matter. The High Court ruled that what should be investigated is whether García Ortiz leaked the lawyer’s email. Ribón avoided that question, which is now the central one in the trial. The State Attorney’s Office tried in several ways to get the principal to comment on the leak. Ribón relied on a litany: the note, the note, the note…
March 13, 2024 was “a crazy day” for Miguel Ángel Campos. The statement by the SER judicial information officer was one of the most awaited moments of the trial. Campos was the first to break the news, around midnight on March 13, of the existence of an email from González Amador’s lawyer acknowledging the crimes before the Prosecutor’s Office. In a note published on his station’s website at 11.51pm. that day Campos included verbatim quotes from the writing. This information was considered by the investigating judge as an indication that the leak came from García Ortiz, to whom the lawyer’s email had been sent at 9.59pm. that night.
That “crazy day,” Campos was trying to find his way in the midst of a media storm. The day before, elDiario.es had published the complaint against González Amador for two tax crimes. And the president of Madrid tried to oppose it by denouncing a government maneuver against her. SER’s judicial correspondent relied on his sources. The fishing, he assures, bore fruit around three in the afternoon: a person invited him to come to his office to teach him something. Once there, she showed him the email in question and allowed him to take note of its contents. But he was not authorized to make it public.
Campos recounted his attempts to corroborate him from other sources: “I called judges, prosecutors, people from the Treasury, from the State Attorney’s Office…”. To no avail. Until after 9.30pm, while he was in a bar watching Atlético Madrid in the Champions League, they told him that The world published that it was the Prosecutor’s Office who proposed the agreement to the lawyer. Campos once again launched into a carousel of calls. Until finally, as he said, he managed to contact his original source and convinced her to allow him to count the emails. This is what he did on air, at 11.25pm, when Aimar Bretos was about to say goodbye Hour 25. He then prepared the note for the website.
The journalist took advantage of professional secrecy to not reveal the source. But one of the prosecutors, Francisco Javier Montero, asked him directly if he was García Ortiz. Campos responded dryly and emphatically:
-NO.
The day left one of the most comically memorable moments in sight. In the middle of the statement, the SER judicial correspondent’s cell phone rang. It was just the time the charges were trying to tickle him for a call. It was done at 9.38pm. the night of the report and the recipient was the attorney general. Campos explained that the current defendant did not respond or return. The telephone company recorded a duration of four seconds, the short period, the reporter said, in which the answering machine rang.
José Manuel Romero, then at EL PAÍS and now deputy director of Eldiario.esseemed to corroborate that he first got word that González Amador’s lawyer had recognized the tax fraud on March 12, a day and a half before the information was passed on to García Ortiz. To demonstrate this, Romero and four other EL PAÍS journalists handed over a notarial document during the investigation which certified the authenticity of an internal chat within the editorial team. In it, the newspaper’s then deputy editor asked the Madrid section to contact Carlos Neira, González Amador’s lawyer, to confirm the information he had been given. Although he did not reveal the source, Romero placed the origin of this news within the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office.
The journalist said it was activated after Ayuso came out to attribute the complaint against her boyfriend to a “political hunt”. The newspaper published nothing that day because Neira did not answer calls and did not obtain further confirmation.
Lawyer Rodríguez-Ramos tried to pin him on the ropes from the start. He commented, surprised that the journalist exchanged whatsapp with the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the response was immediate: “As with the judges of the Supreme Court”. Sometimes the interrogation turned into a debate. Romero stood his ground. His story was confirmed by three other journalists from EL PAÍS: Fernando Peinado, Berta Ferrero and Juan José Mateo.
Testimony in the trial will conclude on Wednesday with the same prosecutor and the UCO agents who investigated the case. With the latter we will address the issue that has been most strongly raised against García Ortiz: the deletion of his electronic devices. The accusers will try to regain the initiative, after an unfavorable day.
