The trial for the so-called mask case will be ready for sentencing this Wednesday, barring any last-minute changes. The three accused, led by former minister José Luis Ábalos, have given their explanations, some more accurate than others. These, along with more than 70 witness and documentary testimonies, will be the entire set of evidence that the seven magistrates will begin to evaluate from Thursday to reach a verdict of conviction or acquittal. The nature of the court is to try to issue a sentence as quickly as possible to avoid unnecessary speculation, so the decision is already expected to be known before the summer holidays.
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The president of the court, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, had organized the witness statements that have appeared over three weeks into thematic blocks, seven in total. Some carried more evidential weight than others. Some only have the confession of the accused businessman Víctor de Aldama. For the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the popular accusation, represented by the PP, his statements have been key to unraveling the case and that is why he earned a sentence reduction. For the defenses of Ábalos and his former advisor, Koldo García, his statement was full of fallacies, lies, and half-truths with the sole purpose of avoiding prison, both in this matter and others pending. This debate is already in the public opinion, but it will be the court that certifies its degree of credibility.
The “Jessica’s well”
That’s how Ábalos defined it. His “extramarital” relationship with Jéssica Rodríguez has served – he says – “for all kinds of ridicule.” But not only that. What he did for that woman is one of the main concerns of the defenses. That “well” has two parts. One is the rental apartment where the young woman lived for nearly two years. The total cost was 82,000 euros. Who paid for it and what evidence is there? Aldama claims he paid through one of his partners, Alberto Escolano. This statement is made by the partner himself. The young woman said in the trial that she did not pay, but always thought Ábalos did. García assured that he helped his boss’s mistress find an apartment and the “boss” – as they call him in the plot – had no choice but to claim that a friend of his advisor named Escolano paid because it was temporary and he also used it for work meetings. The court has the traceability of who paid. The next step is to certify why and in exchange for what.
The ex-mistress’s job
This is the second part of the well. Because although the case is called masks, here the alleged excesses and abuses of Ábalos due to his position as Minister of Transport are also being judged. Did he order his mistress to be placed in the public company Ineco? He denies it but admits he gave her resume to García to help her find a job in the private company. In turn, the advisor says he likes to help others and sent her resume to the president of Adif, Isabel Pardo de Vera. She, in turn, says she forwarded it to the head of Ineco, but without instructions that there was an order to hire her. Several company witnesses acknowledged that Rodríguez did not pass the official interview for the administrative position, but she did have “another” interview with a man no one has identified. It has also not been certified who decided her hiring. The next step. Was she going to work? The young woman said she never went to work. She said Ábalos insisted on having this contract to contribute to social security, but she was studying at university. The former minister believes she was “coerced” to say that. However, several witnesses from Ineco (and later Tragsatec), including an audit, have stated that “in the eyes of Ineco, she worked.”
The Miss’s contract
Ábalos denied having anything to do with the hiring of Claudia Montes in a company linked to Renfe. He denied an intimate relationship, which she also denied, and they rejected a favor. García admitted he passed her resume to “help her,” she was a PSOE member, and Montes herself defended that she applied for the position through Infojobs and did the relevant interviews. A former Logirail executive said a file was opened against her for not going to work but another executive denied it. She stated she went every day, sometimes went to the Oviedo library to “read about trains,” and that she liked her job.
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The masks
“The purchase of masks was a success.” That’s how Ábalos defined the contract with Soluciones de Gestión to bring 13 million masks in the middle of the pandemic. During the trial, all witnesses acknowledged it was a good acquisition, cheaper and of quality. It was not a scam. The contract, being urgent, had the approval of the Court of Auditors, as its president, Enriqueta Chicano, acknowledged in the trial. Even Aldama defended that operation. The only ones who raised some objections were the heads of the UCO who argued that from Puertos del Estado and Adif, no real time was given to other companies to apply. What the court must certify is whether Aldama paid Ábalos bribes in the form of money or gifts before or after those contracts.
Money that “does not surface”
“94,000 euros of which 500 euros monthly in cash are identified. Is this what they have found from me? This is the great mask corruption case. They can try but they will not find it (…) “If I had money, it would have surfaced.” That’s how the former minister denied in his Monday statement that he handled cash from corruption. The UCO defended that Ábalos handled large amounts of cash and, therefore, had almost no movements in his accounts. Ábalos and Koldo maintain it was because he had almost no expenses as a minister and because the rest was advanced by the advisor, with whom he then settled accounts. The minister had rented an apartment to Koldo. As a third factor, Ábalos did not want certain expenses related to his mistress or his children from previous marriages to be detected by his wife. Aldama claims he paid them 10,000 euros monthly for their expenses, in addition to other payments, reaching a total of almost 4 million euros. In the agenda of one of his partners, César Moreno, there are recurring payments to “K” for that amount. Ábalos and Koldo say they do not know him at all and Moreno says the same.
The chalet dilemma
The middleman Aldama claims he acted as an intermediary for a businessman and his partner in the hydrocarbons sector, Claudio Rivas, to buy him a chalet in La Alcaidesa (Cádiz). Supposedly it was for his efforts to get a license to operate from the Ministry of Industry. Ábalos says he knows nothing about that license. García admits he organized a meeting between the businessmen and the chief of staff of the Ministry, but only to help. Rivas has not testified but one of his partners, Carmen Pano, has, and has acknowledged that gift. Aldama, Pano, and Rivas are charged in the National Court for a multimillion fraud. The former minister claims he paid the chalet rent until he stopped doing so when he left office in 2021 and an eviction process began. The court will have to review the bank movements.
Air Europa note
The Prosecutor’s Office and the UCO argue that the plot paid him a vacation in Marbella in exchange for issuing a press release from his Ministry in favor of the Air Europa bailout in 2020. Aldama denies that payment; the former CEO of the airline, Javier Hidalgo, not only denies it but says such a note never existed; and Ábalos says he had nothing to do with that and the vacation was paid for by the family. There is an audio of Aldama telling Hidalgo that Transport was issuing a press release, aiming to calm creditors.
