The process pending throughout Spanish politics enters the decisive phase. The hearing for the discovery of secrets against Álvaro García Ortiz, the state attorney general, will end between next Tuesday and Thursday, a trial which in its first three public hearings did not provide incriminating evidence, beyond that already taken into consideration to place him on the bench. In this final stretch, one of the pillars of the accusation against García Ortiz will be addressed: the deletion of his electronic devices. At that point a clash is expected between the Prosecutor’s Office and the UCO over the deductions that this Civil Guard unit has included in its reports.
Six other journalists will also appear before the seven judges of the Second Section of the Supreme Court. Some of them, like three of those who testified last week, had declared during the investigation that they had learned that Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner had declared herself willing before the Economic Crimes Prosecutor’s Office to admit her fraud to the Treasury Ministry before this information reached García Ortiz. These are the keys to the last three days of the trial.
Cancellation. The fact that García Ortiz deleted the communication history of his phones and computers was one of the central elements that investigating judge Ángel Hurtado relied on in his judicial proceedings. And also the one invoked by two of the three judges of the Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Court to ratify it. They considered it a clue due to García Ortiz’s refusal to “cooperate with the investigation”. The prosecutor claims to periodically delete the records of his electronic devices for security reasons, given the confidential and highly sensitive nature of the information he handles. A third judge of the Appeals Chamber, Ángel Palomo, who expressed a strong dissenting opinion against the accusation, argued that using the cancellation as an incriminating element was equivalent to “asking the accused to prove his innocence”.
The issue was just addressed in last week’s sessions. Only one testimony was recorded, that of Esmeralda Rasillo, head of the Support Unit of the State Attorney General’s Office, responsible for technological supports. Rasillo explained that García Ortiz has changed his cell phone six times since he arrived at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in 2020.
On Tuesday we will get into the matter with the intervention of another member of the State Prosecutor’s Office, Agustín Hidalgo de Morillo, responsible for Data Protection. But the critical moment will arrive on Wednesday, with the declarations of some Uco agents. That Civil Guard unit searched the prosecutor’s office and examined his electronic devices. In one of his reports to the investigating judge, he highlighted that García Ortiz twice deleted his WhatsApp messages on the same day the Supreme Court indicted him, October 16, 2024. The prosecutor does not deny the deletions that day, but assures that the communications with his collaborators during the night of March 13 of that year, when the facts now under trial occurred, had been deleted previously.
The defense provided an expert opinion on the deletions that it had already attempted to introduce in the final phase of the investigation and was rejected by Hurtado. With it he intends to demonstrate, according to sources close to the defense, that it is not possible to trace from time to time which contents have been deleted.
Discrepancies with the UCO. García Ortiz’s defense refutes the content of some UCO reports. Such as the one that concluded that the Attorney General had “a prominent participation in the events that ultimately led to the leak under investigation.” A deduction by the Guardia Civil, despite not having found any proof of paternity. Based on the examination of the communications of the provincial prosecutor of Madrid, Pilar Rodríguez, the UCO points out a chronological coincidence. The famous letter from the Ayuso couple’s lawyer acknowledging the fraud before the Prosecutor’s Office, sent by Rodríguez to García Ortiz on the night of the trial, was received in the latter’s email only at 11.46pm. (even though it was sent almost two hours earlier). Five minutes later, at 11.51pm, the Cadena SER website broadcast the news, including the lawyer’s writing in quotation marks. The defense will object that, a few minutes earlier, at 11.25pm, SER had already anticipated the information on air, at the end of the Hora 25 programme. And it will refute that this coincidence can be used as evidence.
More journalists. This first information from SER is where the crux of the leak lies, which gives great relevance to the testimony that the author of the news, Miguel Ángel Campos, judicial correspondent of the chain, will give this Tuesday. During the investigation, Campos declared that on the afternoon of the 13th he went to an office in Madrid where a source showed him the email of the lawyer of the alleged fraudster, Alberto González Amador. He says he didn’t give it to him, but let him take notes.
The lawyers of the accusations, especially the most active and acute of them, Gabriel Rodríguez-Ramos, representing González Amador, will strive to undermine the credibility of the witness. They will most likely insist on the time elapsed from when the journalist obtained the information until he disseminated it. This is what they did last week with another informant from Eldiario.eswho stated that he had received the email days earlier, but could not publish it until his source authorized it.
Likewise, we await the declaration of José Manuel Romero, deputy director of EL PAÍS at the time of the events, and of three other editors of this newspaper. Journalists sent WhatsApp messages to the case, showing that, before the Attorney General became interested in the case, they asked their sources for information on González Amador’s attempts to reach an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office after confessing to the crimes. Neither all of these testimonies nor that of another La Sexta journalist who testified at the trial last week were taken into consideration by the instructor.
The prosecutor’s statement. The testimonies will end with that of the defendant himself, who at the time refused to answer Hurtado’s questions, a gesture that caused great harm to some sectors of the Supreme Court. Now he must decide whether he will do so in the face of the charges. In the case of the popular ones – from the Madrid Bar Association to ultra groups like Vox, Manos Cleans or Hazte Oír – it seems excluded. The question is whether he will do so in the face of González Amador’s private accusation.
