The Supreme Court will have to decide whether to access the personal email account of the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, and investigate his emails. This is the request made by the defense of Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has asked the high court to investigate his communications with Pilar Rodríguez, the head of the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office. Both are prosecuted for the press release and the emails that denied the hoax that the Prosecutor’s Office offered a pact to González Amador that he later withdrew.
Two days after the high court magistrates received the reasoned statement requesting to open a case against García Ortiz, the businessman’s lawyers sent a 22-page document, to which elDiario.es has had access. In it they recount the events to conclude that the communications of the attorney general and the provincial chief prosecutor of Madrid from their email accounts must be investigated. In addition, they ask that the communication director of the Prosecutor’s Office, Mar Hedo, also be charged. The objective is to find out the origin of the leak of the email in which González Amador confessed to two crimes and which was sent to a generic address of the prosecutor’s office on February 2, five weeks before elDiario.es published the scoop on the fraud. of the Madrid president’s partner.
The brief from González Amador’s defense to investigate the attorney general was sent to the Supreme Court on July 17. On the 15th, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid had submitted a reasoned statement to the high court, a document that brought together the evidence collected during the investigation and requested that a case be opened against the State Attorney General.
That document focused the investigation on the press release prepared on March 14 to deny the hoax that the Prosecutor’s Office had offered González Amador an agreement so that he would recognize the crimes and avoid the trial, which he had later withdrawn “by orders from above.” . The thesis that Miguel Ángel Rodríguez had disseminated through various related media.
However, the Supreme Court has indicated that this press release did not reveal relevant confidential information and has focused on the publication in the press of the email in which González Amador’s lawyer indicated that his client had “certainly” committed the crimes for which that he was being investigated, and proposed reaching an agreement. The address to which the defense of Ayuso’s partner wrote belongs to the Madrid prosecutor’s office and the mailbox can be consulted by 18 people, including prosecutors and officials.
The Supreme Court has appointed Judge Ángel Hurtado as instructor of the case. It is he who will now have to decide whether to accept the request of González Amador’s lawyers and order access to García Ortiz’s personal email.
The document on his table contains a detailed summary of the events, with dates and times of the main events. Of course, there is an important time jump in the story: there is no mention of the hoax published by The World and other media, the reason that led the State Attorney General to request the person in charge of the case for the emails of González Amador’s lawyers and the reason why he decided to publish the note denying the information for which García Ortiz had assumed responsibility in the first person.
A discreet and quick end to the cause
The lawyers point out that the lawyer who has handled the businessman’s tax fraud case offered an agreement to the Prosecutor’s Office “due to the sentimental relationship he maintains with the president of the Community of Madrid (and its potential distorting effect on the circumstances and guarantees). procedural)”. He sought an agreement “as a way to discreetly and quickly terminate the procedure.”
The detailed review of the facts includes the email exchanges between the lawyer and the prosecutor in the case, points out that on March 12 elDiario.es published the first news about González Amador’s tax fraud and includes another false news spread by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez , chief of staff of the Madrid president, according to which a journalist from this newspaper tried to access her home.
At one point, the document states: “On Wednesday, March 13, 2024, around 9:00 p.m., the Attorney General of the State, Mr. Álvaro García Ortiz, asked Ms. María Pilar Rodríguez to request Mr. Julián Salto to , immediately forward the emails exchanged by the Prosecutor’s Office with the lawyer of the partner of the President of the Community of Madrid.”
The lawyers have omitted the reason that triggered that request. Minutes before, the newspaper The World had published information: ‘The Prosecutor’s Office offers Ayuso’s partner an agreement to admit two tax crimes.’ The subtitle stated: “He launched his proposal to Alberto González Amador just two hours after the case broke out.” Both statements were false, but other media outlets picked them up and amplified them, including the tagline that the pact had been frustrated “by orders from above.” It was Miguel Ángel Rodríguez who spread the hoax, which the media published without verifying the information.
The document includes the movements in the following hours and states that the prosecutor in the case, Julián Salto, sent the emails to a personal account of García Ortiz and not to his email from the Prosecutor’s Office. Salto, in his statement before the judge, refused to confirm this information and availed himself of his right not to testify.
The document goes on to report that it was those emails that were used to prepare the press release in which the Prosecutor’s Office denied having offered an agreement that it had later withdrawn. He also points out that Cadena Ser Primero, El País and elDiario.es later published the content of the email in which González Amador’s lawyer acknowledged his client’s guilt. Once the Supreme Court has concluded that the statement neither revealed new data nor harmed González Amador’s right to defense, the court’s objective is to determine whether García Ortiz leaked that email.
Emails y WhatsApps
The letter to the Supreme Court also includes WhatsApp messages from García Ortiz to the senior prosecutor of the Community of Madrid, Almudena Lastra, asking her to publish the note with the denial: “If we let the moment pass, they will win the story. “The actions of the colleagues and the prosecutor’s office are impeccable and must be defended.” It also includes communications via this courier service between the communications director of the Prosecutor’s Office, Mar Hedo, and the press officer of the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office, Íñigo Corral. Hedo sent Corral a first version of the note and then another with some modifications.
González Amador’s lawyers conclude, after the story, that the Supreme Court must access the emails of those investigated. First, to the generic email of the provincial prosecutor’s office of Madrid and also to Pilar Rodríguez’s email. They ask that, at least, the emails that contain the statement by González Amador’s lawyer about his client’s guilt be located.
But they don’t stop there. González Amador’s lawyers ask the Supreme Court to contact Google to claim the emails from García Ortiz’s personal account that contain the text of the confession, but also all the emails exchanged from his account with the prosecutor Pilar Rodríguez between the March 5 and 18. In addition, they ask Google to verify possible emails deleted between those dates.
Finally, they request the initial version of the press release sent by the Prosecutor’s Office and that its communications director be charged to give a statement, in addition to the State Attorney General. Hurtado, who was appointed speaker last Wednesday, must now decide whether to agree to the request.
Source: www.eldiario.es
