The Catarroja judge who is criminally investigating the October 2024 dana, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, has summoned this Friday the spokesperson of the PP in the Valencian Cortes, Juan Francisco Pérez Llorca, one of the possible candidates to replace Carlos Mazón after his resignation as president of the Generalitat, to testify on November 21 at 9.30 am. On the same day, at 11.30am, the magistrate will summon the owner of the El Ventorro restaurant, where Mazón had lunch with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana on the day of the flood.
The call, announced on Wednesday – all that remains is to set the date and time of the press release – will take place in the middle of the negotiation process between PP and Vox to find a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat. After Mazón’s resignation, the political groups of the regional parliament have until November 19 to present their candidates. And if there is an agreement, the deadline for a possible investiture will open in the following days. At the moment PP and Vox are talking in search of a possible consensus around the candidate and if there was no agreement the call for elections would remain.
Pérez Llorca, Mazón’s trusted man and general secretary of the Valencian PP, had three conversations on Sunday afternoon with the former emergency minister, Salomé Pradas, accused in the proceedings. These are communications that occurred at 6.57pm. (when a missed call occurred), at 6.58pm (a 14-second communication) and at 6.59pm (nine seconds).
Mazón also had two phone calls with his ombudsman at 6.57pm, which must be “contextualized” with those exchanged between the former councilor and Mazón at 6.16pm, an outgoing call lasting seven seconds; at 6.25pm, another outgoing call lasting 43 seconds; and at 6.30pm, in that case incoming and lasting 33 seconds.
For the judge, the exchanges between the three politicians can, in the case of Pérez Llorca, “provide information” on that day and underlines that Pradas attributes “a bond” and a “closeness” of the witness to the president acting. “To the point that in his telephone contacts he receives the name Juan Fran Mazón, not Pérez Llorca”, indicates the diligence.
The judge frames all these statements in the fact that, in the analysis of Cecopi’s decision-making process on 29 October last year, and in the specific analysis of the sending of the alarm to the population, “it is pertinent” to study the appeals that Pradas could have made “in order to clarify the deliberative process” followed in that meeting.
The judge also called to testify for that same day the owner of the El Ventorro restaurant, a place where Mazón stayed for almost four hours for lunch with Vilaplana during the flood that caused 229 deaths in the province of Valencia.
After the summons of Pérez Llorca and the owner of the restaurant, depositions are expected, also as witnesses, of the regional secretary of the Presidency, José Manuel Cuenca, the regional secretary Cayetano García and the general director of Communications, Francisco González.
