The National Court has already taken the first step to examine the PSOE’s accounts. Magistrate Ismael Moreno, who manages all investigations relating to the The Koldo case who have no direct link with the deputy José Luis Ábalos (the only one authorized by the procedure), has opened a new line of investigation into the expense reimbursement system within the party. The judge made this decision after receiving the brief of his colleague Leopoldo Puente, who heads the investigation into the former Transport Minister at the Supreme Court and who he invited last week to investigate the money that the politician and his former assistant, Koldo García, received through training.
After 1pm on Thursday, Judge Moreno signed the resolution opening the new line of investigation (technically called “separate piece”). Through a one-page document, to which EL PAÍS had access, the magistrate announced that he had received the documentation from the Supreme Court and that he was giving the green light to activate this part of the investigation. Among the material sent by Puente to the National Court, as specified by the teacher, are the statements made in court by the former PSOE leader, Mariano Moreno; by party employee Celia Rodríguez; and by the entrepreneur Carmen Pano, who claims without evidence to have gone to Ferraz twice in October 2020 to deliver 90 thousand euros.
Ismael Moreno’s resolution explains that all the information provided by the socialists on the payment system is also attached, as well as a report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard which analyzed the issue.
The impetus for this new line of investigation comes after Leopoldo Puente sent a letter to the National Court on October 31, in which he said that it should consider launching investigations into the reimbursement of cash expenses in the PSOE. The investigating judge of the Supreme Court insisted that “unknowns” had arisen to “clarify” the payments made by the party to José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García, “to the extent that they could denote the possible existence of irregular, and even potentially criminal, conduct or activities”.
However, Puente concluded that it should be the National Court that guides this new part of the The Koldo case. According to the Supreme Court judge, “it seems clear” that the party’s activity can be separated from the subject of its investigation into Ábalos – over which it has powers. However, if evidence of a crime emerges which leads to an accused person, that part of the case should return to the High Court.
The Supreme Court judge took this step after having collected the statements of the former socialist manager Mariano Moreno and a Ferraz worker, who supported the version given by the group from the beginning. The socialists reject the existence of a fund and say that the money received in cash by the former minister and his former advisor corresponds to the reimbursement of expenses, such as meals or travel.
Puente wanted to know the version of the PSOE workers after a UCO report that alluded to “a lack of agreement” between the documentation sent by the party on the agreements reached in Ábalos and the conversations between García and his ex-wife about alleged cash receipts “through envelopes in the PSOE headquarters” in Ferraz Street.
Mariano Moreno and Celia Rodríguez, who insisted that the socialists do not have irregular accounting, provided documentation to underline that this alleged imbalance is due to the fact that only the expenses paid individually to the two former secretaries of the Organization under investigation (Ábalos and Santos Cerdán) and the former advisor to the minister were handed over to the court; But these three were also able to receive from the Organization Secretariat the accounts of their teams’ expenses, which were recorded as such in the party’s accounts and not individually.
The teacher, however, believes that the statements of Moreno and Rodríguez did not clarify any doubts about “who the person was and what the procedure for monetary compensation of the invoices presented was”; or because it has not been demonstrated that the person requesting reimbursement of expenses was, “pursuant to art tickets or invoices supplied”, who had issued them.
