The scene occurred in front of the Supreme Court two weeks ago. Alberto González Amador, a witness in the case investigating the crime of revealing secrets of the State Attorney General, asked the seven judges for “one minute” to present one last idea: “Following the leak of information from the State Attorney General, they destroyed my life,” he said. And, without half measures, he blurted out:
«Either I leave Spain or I commit suicide.
This Thursday the Supreme Court brought forward the sentence – the sentence with the reasons is not yet written – to the attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, to two years of disqualification (which implies his dismissal), a fine of 7,200 euros and compensation of 10,000 euros to Amador. The decision is a victory for Amador and, therefore, for his partner, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who on Thursday vindicated her thesis of a political conspiracy in a tweet and today will appear before the media from Sol, seat of the presidency. He has not yet commented on whether his partner will use this Supreme Court ruling in an attempt to escape the two possible convictions against him, but the idea has been circulating in the media for weeks.
In fact, this idea of a legal connection between the Supreme Court case and the two pieces against Amador in the courts is not new. Since he began being investigated by a Madrid court in March last year, Amador has claimed that his right to a defense was violated in the run-up to trial. He alluded both to the leak of the email in which his lawyer tried to negotiate a reduced sentence with the prosecution, and to the press release issued by order of the Attorney General after the disinformation campaign orchestrated by the Ayuso government. For consistency, what is expected is that Amador will now contribute to the conviction against the prosecutor to try to resolve his legal difficulties. Judicial sources familiar with his strategy inform EL PAÍS that he will ask for the annulment of the two proceedings concerning him, even if his two lawyers have not responded to this question. Another thing, however, is that some jurists doubt whether it can be of any use.
Amador is expected to present this conviction before the criminal judge who will try him for tax fraud and forgery of documents on an as yet unknown date and before the 19th Court of Inquiry, where a second open case for alleged commercial corruption is still being investigated.
An example of this strategy is the defense made before the Supreme Court by his lawyer Gabriel Rodríguez Ramos, who also defends him in the cases opened against him. Ramos not only called for the attorney general to be convicted, but also highlighted the violation of his client’s rights.
This alleged lack of defense was also attempted by Ramos and his fellow lawyer Carlos Neira in the courts of Plaza de Castilla. Proof of this are the recent appeals filed to prevent their client from ending up in the dock for tax fraud. In the one filed on June 4th at Court 19, they tried to convince the judge to reopen the investigation phase and asked for new evidence favorable to Amador. They weren’t asking for an annulment, but they were talking about what they perceived as an injustice at the root of the case. In their writing they recounted for four pages the events that occurred between 7 and 14 March 2024, the same events that were the reason for the Supreme Court’s conviction.
What rights does Amador believe have been violated? The letter details the “absolute and definitive violation” of fundamental rights to privacy, data protection, the presumption of innocence and the right to judicial defense “with an intensity never seen in our justice system”.
The letter went on to state that a subordinate had sent “everything” to García Ortiz’s right-hand man in the days before the news broke, including the complaint and the tax file. It is also added that the chief prosecutor of the province of Madrid sent the email from Amador’s lawyer to the personal Gmail account of the state attorney general at 9.59pm. of March 13, 2024, in which he confessed to the public prosecutor that “two crimes against the public treasury were certainly committed”, with the idea of reaching an agreement to reduce the sentence. He added that the contents of the email were published at 11.51pm. of Cadena SER. And it concluded that the Attorney General had ordered the dissemination of the press release of March 14, “institutionally sanctifying the violation of fundamental rights”.
The “culmination” of that insult, the statement added, had been reached with the indictment issued on May 28 by the judge, with which he accepted the accusation and placed it at the gates of the trial.
Judge Iglesias’ response was emphatic: “The arguments advanced in the first ground of censure regarding the special case investigated by the Supreme Court have nothing to do with this procedure.” Then, Amador appealed to the provincial court and was also refused, in a sentence known during the trial of the attorney general on November 7.
Interviewed by this newspaper, the professor of procedural law at the University of Barcelona, Jordi Nieva, agrees with these decisions. And he believes that the attorney general’s conviction changes nothing. “This is not debatable,” Nieva says. “Can you imagine that instead of fraud someone was tried for murder and they tried to quash that proceeding for revealing secrets? Would anyone understand that?”
It will be interesting to know if Ayuso will express his opinion on the matter today, in the press conference he will hold at 12.30 from the Puerta del Sol. We will also have to wait for the sentence because the details matter. What the magistrates claim could be interpreted by Amador as confirmation of his innocence.
Do you have something to say? Write to the authors at mviejo@elpais.es AND fpeinado@elpais.es
