The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 24 years in prison and a fine of over 3.7 million euros for former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos for alleged irregularities in the purchase of masks during the pandemic, and another 19.5 years for his former advisor, Koldo García. For the third person involved in the plot, Commissioner Víctor de Aldama, the Prosecutor’s Office requests only seven years in prison after applying the mitigating factor of collaboration with justice. The anti-corruption agency accuses Ábalos and Koldo García of five crimes: criminal organization, fraud, use of privileged information, influence peddling and embezzlement. Aldama is accused only of criminal organization, corruption and use of privileged information. The Public Prosecutor also requests subsidiary compensation of 34,477.86 euros between the three defendants Ábalos and Koldo for Ineco and 9,500.54 euros for Tragsatec, the two public companies to which, presumably, the conspiracy linked Jésica Rodríguez, Ábalos’ ex-partner.
Supreme Court magistrate Leopoldo Puente proposed on November 3 to send former ministers Koldo and Aldama to trial for the first part of the investigation, focused on the purchase of masks during the pandemic, which was initially called into question The Koldo case. The magistrate considers it demonstrated that the commissioner had “preventive and privileged information” on the necessity of the health emergency, which allowed him to “articulate an offer” to “guarantee the perfection of the contract”. In this way, one of his companies, Management Solutions, took over the contracts of State Ports (8 million masks) and ADIF (5 million) after an order signed by the minister in March 2020.
Both Ábalos and Koldo have appealed against the public prosecution and believe that the investigation was “unbalanced” and that their right to defense was violated. Ábalos’ lawyer, former prosecutor Carlos Bautista, explained in his appeal that the investigation had ended without the former minister having been able to access the digital material seized by the Guardia Civil during the house searches and without any of the procedures he requested having been agreed upon. “Issuing an expedited procedure order without prior access to forensic devices brutally limits the right to defense,” he noted.
Furthermore, he accused the instructor of skipping the measurement checks that Ábalos continues to enjoy as a congressman in the Mixed Group. “It is not possible to launch an investigation against a deputy or senator without the prior authorization of the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate,” he underlined.
Koldo’s appeal went in the same direction and explained that it was not possible that the case had ended without having had access even once to the evidence that the suspects had proposed and without having called some of the interested parties to testify as suspects instead of as witnesses. “The fundamental right of defense is violated by depriving this party of carrying out the investigative procedures necessary to contradict the facts,” it reads.
