The awaited confession of businessman Julio Martínez Martínez fell short. According to legal sources, it could be an advance, an announcement of his willingness to cooperate, but it was not a complete statement that would allow discovering who former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero influenced to, among other things, achieve the rescue of the airline Plus Ultra, which was granted 53 million euros after the pandemic to prevent its eventual financial collapse.
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Martínez told the judge yesterday, who is investigating him alongside Zapatero in the so-called Plus Ultra case, that he does not know what actions the former Prime Minister carried out or with whom he spoke. Those details, he says, were not given to him. According to his line of defense, he provided the name to create the company Análisis Relevante (AR) but only that. The leader and manager of the company, who sought clients and carried out the relevant procedures for them, was Zapatero.
It is true that Martínez would also have taken advantage of the former socialist leader’s connections. In fact, he explained that after several trips accompanying Zapatero to Venezuela, the latter opened doors for him to certain leaders, which allowed him to carry out his own dealings. Specifically, one of those doors was that of Delcy Rodríguez, then former president of Venezuela, and current president after the arrest of Nicolás Maduro by the United States.
The magistrate, after listening to the witness for three hours, defines him as a “go-between”
As he explained to the National Court judge, José Luis Calama, and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, the work for Plus Ultra was not limited to first seeking financing and then the rescue to solve the company’s economic problems, which they already had but worsened with the pandemic. Martínez helped them solve other problems, flight permits and licenses in Venezuela, for which he also charged.
But despite having confessed to these specific tasks, the relevant point is that Martínez has taken the first step to place all responsibility for the activities of the company Análisis Relevante on Rodríguez Zapatero, a personal friend since 2011.
The businessman already advanced his new position on Monday, in a written statement to the National Court investigating him, and ratified it yesterday in court.
The businessman admits to having made some arrangements on behalf of Plus Ultra with Delcy Rodríguez
According to sources present at the statement, and as interpreted by the magistrate himself, Martínez defended his role as a mere “go-between” for Zapatero’s businesses, without any decision-making capacity.
The businessman pointed out that AR was created as a vehicle to collect payments for Zapatero’s contracts, as he was the one with influence. One of the former president’s clients was Plus Ultra, but there were also others, such as Inteligencia Prospectiva or Softgestor, companies linked to Venezuelan businessmen.
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The businessman’s line of defense is a direct attack on the waterline of the former president’s defense, who, in his statement as an investigated party and alleged leader of an influence peddling scheme, limited his work for AR to that of a principal consultant for the company, without any management or decision-making capacity. Martínez has chosen not to assume responsibility for the payments detected from various companies.
The investigated party explains the details of collecting a 1% commission from the airline’s rescue
Martínez Martínez detailed how, once clients were obtained and payments set, he was responsible for paying Zapatero through consulting invoices, which amounted to around 90,000 euros per month. In fact, he explained that to process client payments, he created a series of companies such as Idella Consulenza or Voli Analítica, adjacent to AR. This version aligns with investigators’ suspicions that Zapatero’s secretary, also under investigation, Gertrudis Alcázar, coordinated with AR’s administrator to agree on the amounts and concepts of the invoices to be paid to the former president.
Martínez also acknowledged, regarding the Plus Ultra rescue, the agreement reached with the company for 1% of the rescue – the compensation for the success of the operation after the Government granted the rescue, at the proposal of SEPI – to be received in installments through several of Martínez’s companies and over years due to the “media pressure” generated after the aid was granted. In fact, the rescue was reported, although the case was shelved due to lack of evidence of criminality.
Martínez explains that the idea of an offshore company in Dubai was discarded due to its complexity
It was not until years later, after an alert from the French Police detecting alleged money laundering of Spanish public funds through Venezuelan companies, that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office began to pull the thread. And that is how they reached the former president.</p
Martínez still has much to explain. Regarding the creation of an offshore company in Dubai, he merely stated that it was a proposal from a third party, as a business opportunity, but that given its complexity, it was eventually discarded.
A 3,000 euro retainer for the daughters
Julio Martínez explained that among the agreement reached with the former Prime Minister to carry out the joint business starting in 2020 was the payment of 3,000 euros monthly to the company Whathefav, owned by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s daughters.
The payment of this retainer to the company of Laura and Alba Rodríguez Espinosa, which extended until 2025, was for laying out reports. For these works, they have collected a total of 239,000 euros, to which should be added payments from other clients of Análisis Relevante, with Inteligencia Prospectiva, owned by Venezuelan businessmen, who also made payments to Whathefav for 561,000 euros.
According to the businessman, the work of the former socialist leader’s daughters was to lay out reports for better presentation. He indicated that these documents were generally prepared with information from open sources with the aim of attracting new clients.
For these payments, both Laura and Alba have been charged by National Court judge José Luis Calama and have the company’s accounts blocked, although a date for their interrogation has not yet been set.
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