The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has asked the Supreme Court judge to host a hearing to decide whether to modify the precautionary measures currently imposed on former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo García, after having requested 24 and 19 and a half years of imprisonment for them respectively for the mask conspiracy. Instructor Leopoldo Puente had warned the last time both suspects appeared in the investigation that there was an “increasing” risk of escape as the trial date approached.
The brief that the chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Alejandro Luzón, presented on Wednesday before the Supreme Court, requests that a hearing be organized pursuant to article 505 of the Criminal Procedure Law. This article specifies that during this hearing “the Prosecutor’s Office or the accused may request that the suspect or accused be temporarily detained or released on bail”.
Until this moment, the popular accusations represented in this investigation had required that the former minister and his previous assistant be locked up in a penitentiary center, but the Prosecutor’s Office had always supported other types of precautionary measures which, in the end, the judge had accepted instead of prison. For months, Ábalos and Koldo have had their passports withdrawn, required to appear in court and banned from leaving Spain.
When both last appeared before the Supreme Court on October 15, Judge Puente argued that there was no high risk of flight at that time, but admitted that this was “increasing” as the evidence became stronger and that “the date on which” the trial will be held approached. “Which, perhaps, could justify, as suggested by the Prosecutor’s Office in its report, the adoption of more onerous precautionary measures in the future”, indicated the magistrate.
Furthermore, Luzón specifies that, in view of the trial and taking into account “the volume and relevance of the documents proposed” by the Prosecutor’s Office, the Supreme Court will have to provide “the necessary technical means that allow, at the time of personal exposure, the faithful reproduction and public viewing of such documents”.
The Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 24 years in prison and a fine of over 3.9 million euros for former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos for alleged irregularities in the purchase of masks during the pandemic. For Koldo García he asked for 19 years and six months, as well as another fine of 3.9 million euros. Both are accused of five crimes: criminal organisation, corruption, use of privileged information, influence peddling and embezzlement. For his part, the public prosecutor is only asking for seven years’ imprisonment for the entrepreneur Víctor de Aldama, after having applied a reduced sentence for collaborating with justice.
