The National Court has issued an order confirming the decision made in March by Judge Manuel García-Castellón, referee of the Púnica case, to dismiss this lawsuit against Lucía Figar (PP), Minister of Education of the Community of Madrid during the Esperanza government, submit Aguirre and Ignacio González. With their decision, the judges of the Fourth Section of the Criminal Chamber reject the appeal of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which had requested the withdrawal of the indictment against the former leader of the PP of Madrid, who has since been investigated in this macro-corruption case Against Figar, which two days after after learning of her first accusation, resigned, was investigated for allegedly paying public money to companies as part of the plan to prepare online reputation work, allegedly for her personal benefit. The National Court’s decision, which does not allow appeal, also exonerates five other defendants in the same case, including the former mayor of Alcobendas (Madrid) and a high-ranking Community official, Ignacio García de Vinuesa.
The National Court is thus ending the legal dispute that the investigating judge Figar and the anti-corruption authority had conducted last year. Judge García-Castellón first filed suit against the former politician in October 2022. However, the criminal court corrected it at the request of the State Ministry. The court concluded that the former consultant was dismissed in part of the summary, number 9, which examines the alleged irregular financing of the Madrid PP, while in part 10 she was actually under suspicion, relating to the alleged diversion of public funds Funds focused on paying for online campaigns to improve the image of PP politicians in the Community of Madrid.
After this initial decision, García-Castellón again closed the case against Figar last March, now in part 10. In addition, the judge concluded that the online reputation work from which the former advisor benefited was incapable of to separate themselves from the public Their position in the government of the Community of Madrid was not punishable, and it was therefore not punishable to pay for them with public money. The investigating judge argued that it had not been “proven” that the services commissioned by the Ministry of Education were “exclusively of a laudatory nature” for the PP boss. The public prosecutor filed another appeal, which the regional court has now decided on.
In its order on file, the court endorses the arguments of the investigating judge in the Púnica case and points out that the “initial evidence” that led to Figar’s indictment almost eight years ago “was not supported by a process of rational and deductive inference.” “logical”. In their decision, the judges emphasize that in these reputation works “it is extremely difficult to distinguish, in promotion or reputation campaigns, between institutional promotion and the personal reputation of the politician or, in other words, between the notoriety that corresponds to him as a result of the social one Activity which he is called to carry out in the institution in which the position is held and the social work carried out by the institution.
In this sense, the court refers to two previous judicial decisions to the same effect, also in the Púnica case. This is the order of the Supreme Court, which in October 2018 archived the case against the then senator (and therefore qualified) and former mayor of Cartagena, Pilar Barreiro, concluding that there was no evidence that she was for one The election campaign was paid for with public money. on the Internet to improve her reputation after she was implicated in another corruption case. The second is the verdict on part 2 of the case in which several PP officials were indicted in the province of León, published on May 30th. In this judgment, which is not yet final, the court convicted two former PP mayors of other crimes, but acquitted them of the crimes they were accused of in connection with online reputation work. The court then held that it had not been proven that these image-promoting reports “had a purely personal dimension”. “In the opinion of this Chamber, it is undeniable that the name of the person and the position are inextricably linked,” emphasized the judgment, which the National Court now used to justify its decision to exonerate Figar.
In the same vein, the Criminal Chamber of the National Court now points out in the order that it is not obvious that “the reputation reports issued served to preserve or promote this.” [imagen o reputación] personal nature of the woman under investigation, Lucia Figar.” And he concludes that the former politician used “her social media profiles exclusively for purely official activities,” thereby confirming the decision of Judge García-Castellón to dismiss the case submit them. The same resolution maintains the dismissal of the other five defendants for whom the prosecution has requested continuation of the trial: García de Vinuesa; Teresa Alonso-Majagranzas, former communications director of the latter; Pablo Balbín, former press officer at the Ministry of Education; Manuel Pérez, former Vice Minister of Education; and Luis Sánchez, former director of the Madri+d Knowledge Foundation.
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