Política

The heads of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard went today to ratify all the reports they have prepared regarding the corruption plot that revolved around the former Minister of Transport and PSOE Secretary General José Luis Ábalos. They did not hesitate for a minute. Although businessman Víctor de Aldama was the corruptor, the one who had the money, and the one who, therefore, gave orders, none of this could have happened without Ábalos. “Without the minister, they would not have been able to carry out any of the procedures,” explained Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas.

As soon as she stood in front of the microphone, in the middle of the courtroom of the Audiencia Nacional where Operation Kitchen is being tried, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría recalled the string of positions she accumulated during Mariano Rajoy’s time in Moncloa: sole Vice President of the Government, Government spokesperson, and Minister of the Presidency, from which the National Intelligence Center (CNI) depended. Despite this accumulation of power, Sáenz de Santamaría has “no knowledge” —not even “no recollection”— of the operation, allegedly orchestrated from the Ministry of Interior, to steal documentation from the former treasurer of the Popular Party, Luis Bárcenas.

Jordi Pujol i Soley will be condemned by history or time, but not by the courts. The Audiencia Nacional decided this morning that the former president of the Generalitat, 95 years old, is not in a condition to be tried, given the cognitive deterioration he suffers.

Former government president Mariano Rajoy and his right-hand woman in the Popular Party, María Dolores de Cospedal, are sticking to their guns. For them, the party’s former treasurer Luis Bárcenas was the traitor, who hid millions of euros in Switzerland and who deceived to make people believe he had compromising papers that he didn’t actually have. For both, the PP’s finance man is lying, and that’s why the so-called Operation Kitchen is an invention. There was “no illegal operation, political or police” against Bárcenas, much less one mounted by one of their own, former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, whom Cospedal defined as a “straightforward and upright person who has suffered a lot.”

Judge David Maman Benchimol, who is investigating the complaint against the former Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the National Police, José Angel González, for alleged sexual assault of a subordinate, spoke about the “advantages” given to women who report to the courts and who go “hunting for the order,” according to laSexta.

The former director of Globalia’s legal department, Ramiro Campos Gallego, denied this Thursday that the wife of the Prime Minister, Begoña Gómez, had “nothing” to do with the loan to Air Europa, while also defending this operation, proclaiming that it had “very significant” conditions and that everything has already been repaid with interest.

It all started with some audio files that were contained in one of Koldo García’s phones. The trial being held in the Supreme Court against former minister José Luis Ábalos, his advisor Koldo García, and the commissioner Víctor de Aldama saw a monumental dispute this afternoon between Koldo’s lawyer and the prosecutor of the case over those recordings.

The agreement between PP and Vox in Aragon is broader than that of Extremadura: a document with 39 pages, thirteen sections, and 117 measures. With this agreement, Jorge Azcón will be sworn in as president of Aragon next week.

“If we take a look at our most recent past and if we broaden our view to international developments, we will become aware that Catalonia has left behind the time of paralysis and indecision. Catalonia has left behind the time of division and confrontation. Catalonia is living today the time of solutions to transform the country.” In the traditional institutional message from the President of the Generalitat for Sant Jordi, Salvador Illa has this year painted an optimistic picture of Catalonia, based on an analysis of the global situation, where armed conflicts carry great weight, but also based on the internal diagnosis. Illa believes that “Catalonia is on the move and determined.”

With that characteristic slyness, Mariano Rajoy once said about the party’s slush fund he presided over: “We knew everything, except what appeared in the newspapers.” The Gürtel case politically brought down the leader of the PP, but he has never had to assume judicial responsibility for the illegal financing network that operated for years within the PP and provided undeclared bonuses to a large part of its leaders and served to pay for the renovation of the party’s headquarters on Génova street in Madrid, as well as numerous electoral events and to enrich some necessary intermediaries, such as the party’s own treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. Several judges have investigated this case and its derivatives, but Rajoy has not been accused of anything in these years. Today he will testify again before the Audiencia Nacional. It is necessary to review, now with perspective, what has happened so that M. Rajoy’s involvement has not gone further and is only fodder for talk shows or social media memes. We are going to divide one of the most relevant corruption cases of recent decades in Spain into three phases: