In the front row and from left Esperanza Aguirre, Lucía Figar and Salvador Victoria, in 2011. Samuel Sánchez
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has asked the National Court to re-indict five former senior PP officials in the Punic case, including former Madrid councilors Salvador Victoria and Lucía Figar, who were under investigation for their alleged involvement in a corrupt plot launched by the institutions run by the institutions hatched the match. Coroner Manuel García-Castellón agreed to start her trial last October when he concluded there was insufficient evidence to bring her to justice, but the State Department is asking the Trial Chamber to overturn that decision .
More information
In a letter dated October 24, signed by the three prosecutors in the case and to which EL PAÍS had access, prosecutors appealed part of García-Castellón’s indictment in Separate Piece 9 of Púnica, which referred to the irregular funding of the PP of Madrid and in part of the online reputation works paid with public funds in favor of the members of the formation. In that resolution, the magistrate opened investigations not only against these five former high-ranking people’s officials – which prosecutors are now defying – but against a total of 71 people, including Esperanza Aguirre and Ignacio González, former presidents of the Madrid-based community. In this way, he ended up only proposing to bring eight defendants to justice.
Prosecutors are not appealing the dismissal of the two former leaders because the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office itself concluded that it had no evidence to prosecute. However, she is asking the Trial Chamber to revoke the file on Lucía Figar, former Minister of Education; Salvador Victoria, former Presidential and Attorney General; Pablo Balbín, former press officer at the Ministry of Education; Manuel Pérez, former Deputy Minister of Education; and Luis Sánchez, former director of the Madrid+D Foundation for Knowledge. Anti-Corruption is also calling for the resignation of María Luisa de Madariaga, one of the businesswomen involved in the plot.
sufficient evidence
Prosecutors in July asked that Salvador Victoria be brought to justice over evidence that he was “a knowledgeable beneficiary and promoter” of the contracts with Alejandro de Pedro, the computer scientist who was paid with public funds to do serious work afford internet for party fees. But García-Castellón didn’t accept it. According to the judge, this is not “proven”: “No hard evidence has been gathered that it was Victoria who issued the order for these payments,” the judge said.
What affects most is what happens next. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything.
Subscribe to
A thesis that refutes the public ministry. Anti-Corruption confirms that the former minister of the presidency was a beneficiary of online reputation work, and also in the summary there are phone calls implicating him. Among them with De Pedro. “From them, a presumed implication in the way is derived [el informático] He had to charge fees for certain works carried out for politicians of the PP in Madrid through ICM (Agency of Informatics and Communications), Canal Isabel II and the Indra company, ”explain the prosecutors.
Another line of research
The reason for requesting an overturning of the dismissals of the other four former PP officials starts at a different point. First, prosecutors allege that Figar, Balbín, Sánchez, and Pérez were not charged in separate piece 9 of the summary, but in 10, which examines another portion of the online work provided by De Pedro — this line from The Investigations Focus to those that affect the municipalities of Madrid, Valencia, Denia, Gandía, Castellón, Valdemoro, Coslada, Alcobendas, Majadahonda and those that have appeared in the Ministry of Education of the CAM and in third Iberoamerican countries. Therefore, according to Anticorruption, the dismissal of the proceeding against them in section 9 “violates all procedural safeguards”.
But in addition, prosecutors claim there is enough evidence against these four to bench them. They promoted, approved and “fractional contracts” to award them to the computer scientist, reveals the public ministry, again indicating that Figar, who is very close to Esperanza Aguirre, is the big beneficiary. On October 24, in El Español, after learning of Judge García-Castellón’s decision to fire her, the former education minister declared: “I was very high up and you’re going through a trial that is an outrage.”