Judge Juan Carlos Peinado has turned what began as an investigation into the professional activity of Begoña Gómez into a case to which derivatives continue to add up. New fronts of the case that the magistrate feeds based on popular accusations of extreme right without, for the moment, having produced significant progress. The last ramifications are aimed at scrutinizing his relationship with the Complutense University, where he had two master’s degrees and an extraordinary professorship; your recruitment at the IE Africa Center and even your personal finances.
In addition to Gómez, summoned on Wednesday, the judge will question this week the Moncloa advisor who made arrangements for that chair and the director of IE and former regional councilor of the PP in Madrid Juan José Güemes. Meanwhile, Peinado has also opened up to investigate Gómez’s assets in an investigation that moves further and further away from the initial object and that has left behind suspicions about Juan Carlos Barrabés’ contracts and the letters of recommendation in which Manos Limpas focused his complaint.
Regarding the advisor, the magistrate has already identified María Cristina Álvarez as the person who, according to journalistic information, would have sent emails to companies that collaborated with Gómez in his work for the Complutense. However, in an order dated December 10, he asked the Presidency of the Government to provide a detailed list of all the workers and advisors who work at the Moncloa Palace. The magistrate does not explain the reason for the request for information or why he wants the list of the hundreds of people, including officials and freely appointed positions, who work there. The advisor is summoned to testify as a witness next Friday, December 20.
Two days before, on Wednesday the 18th, Güemes, who was summoned as a witness and ended up as a defendant after denying that he had given the order to hire Gómez because she was the wife of the President of the Government, will appear under investigation. Before the judge, who was one of Esperanza Aguirre’s strong men tried to explain that the hiring of Gómez had been due to his experience in the field of fundraising.
But that, according to the judge, contradicts what was stated in court by another witness, the director of Human Resources of the IE, Sonsoles Blanca Gil de Antuñano. This directive pointed to Güemes as the person who had given the order to hire Gómez to direct the IE Africa Center. He assured that his salary amounted to 55,000 euros per year in 14 payments. In a tense interrogation, Peinado even proposed a confrontation between both defendants. Finally, he agreed that the witness would return again, but as a defendant, although he did not specify either the facts that motivated his change of status or the crimes that were attributed to him on an indirect basis.
It is not the first time that Peinado accuses a witness after hearing their answers in court. He did it with the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, professor of the master’s degree that Gómez directed at the Complutense University and whom he has in his sights for his public awards in contracts related to innovation. And also with the rector of the Complutense, Joaquín Goyache, who in his two appearances denied having given favorable treatment to Gómez and disassociated himself from the creation of the chair that the wife of the head of the Executive co-directed on the Madrid campus. As in the Güemes case, the judge has not clarified what he is accusing them of.
Gomez’s heritage
The judge has also recently delved into another hitherto unexplored territory: Gómez’s estate. To do this, he went to the Judicial Neutral Point, which located 11 bank accounts in which Gómez supposedly appears with a total balance of 40.25 euros. That list included that it is “owner” in five accounts, “representative” in four and “authorized” in two. The only ones in which any balance was reflected are two in which it appeared as the owner: one with 40.10 euros and another with 0.15 euros.
The defense of Sánchez’s wife warned the judge that this banking information was “absolutely erroneous”, while urging him to protect his personal data to prevent it from falling into the hands of “third parties”, including the press. The document presented by his lawyer, Antonio Camacho, pointed out the errors in that information, both in relation to the identification of the accounts, since some of which he is not the owner appeared; as well as the balances, since he insisted that it is “totally uncertain that these accounts almost all have a 0 balance.”
On the other hand, Camacho questioned that this information had been added to the case “with all the data that has been sent”, including bank account numbers of which he is the owner, “thus failing to comply with basic principles regarding the protection of personal data and, with it, essential rules in the processing of criminal procedures.”
Gómez is summoned to testify again next Wednesday after the judge admitted a new complaint filed against her by the ultra organization Hazte Oír, which attributes to her the crimes of misappropriation and professional intrusion in relation to the Complutense software that she offered. at no cost to some companies and “non-profit”. It will be the third time that he has sat before the judge after the opening of the case nine months ago. On the other two occasions he has availed himself of his right not to testify.
Source: www.eldiario.es
