The Dana judge considers that the report from the Generalitat Attorney’s Office “contradicts” the testimonial statement made on December 12 by José Manuel Cuenca, former chief of staff of Carlos Mazón. It is not the first contradiction that Cuenca has incurred: the former senior Presidential official did not clarify whether his visit to Benigànim on the afternoon of the dana was for “a party issue,” as he said that day to the general director Pilar Montes, or for “a personal matter,” as he declared before the judge in his first testimony on November 26. However, the last of its contradictions detected by the magistrate contains more substance and points to the chiaroscuros that Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra is investigating about the decision-making of the Generalitat before the dana of October 29, 2024, a tragic day that left 230 dead.
Cuenca, according to the notarial record of its WhatsApp messages provided by former councilor Salomé Pradas, investigated in the case, raised severe objections to the possibility of confining the population, one of the measures that was debated at the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) before Mazón’s arrival at the l’Eliana complex that houses the Emergency Center of the Generalitat. “Salo, please confine nothing,” Mazón’s chief of staff wrote to Pradas.
The witness was ambiguous in his last statement, made after the WhatsApp messages with the then councilor were known. He assured that he told Pradas “to confine nothing” in light of the legal doubts that Mazón’s team had regarding that possibility and “waiting” for the consultation with the Generalitat’s Attorney’s Office, which the then regional secretary of the Presidency, Cayetano García Ramírez, “puts on alert.” José Manuel Cuenca asked Salomé Pradas to “calm down” “for the mere fact that the Law Office was warned” in case they were consulted, according to what the witness declared before the judge.
However, the Law Office gave its flat endorsement to the possibility of confinement of the population. After a question from Ricardo García, the undersecretary of Pradas, about “whether a possible confinement would have legal support,” the lawyer assigned to the Department of Justice and Interior “answered affirmatively” and indicated “the precepts on which it could be based,” according to the report sent to the judge of the dana to which elDiario.es has had access.
The Attorney General’s Office was consulted in “short telephone calls,” as explained by Álvaro Martínez Ávila, general attorney of the Generalitat, in the report in the hands of the investigating magistrate. Martínez Ávila also details that Cayetano García Ramírez, then regional secretary of the Presidency, called to “advise” of the possibility of the Pradas department consulting “in case it was necessary to issue any resolution or provision that required a legal report in relation to a possible confinement.” “The attorney general expressed his willingness,” the report adds.
The Attorney General’s Office “intervened” in the damage
However, after these brief calls “no request for a report or additional request was received, either verbally or in writing.”
Thanks to the Pradas WhatsApps and pulling the thread, the magistrate has accredited that the Generalitat Attorney’s Office “intervened” collaterally in the decision-making “by providing advice.”
However, Cuenca’s version smells like burnt horn to the judge. “According to Mr. Cuenca, his messages to Mrs. Pradas are based on the alleged statements of the Attorney of the Generalitat that Mr. Cayetano García would have transmitted to the witness,” recalls the magistrate in an order issued this Wednesday.
“On the other hand,” adds the resolution, the report of the General Attorney of the Generalitat, “speaks only of two short calls, and that in one of them it was stated that an eventual confinement would have legal support, indicating the precepts on which it could be based.”
New batch of witnesses
Thus, given the new contradictions in the version of José Manuel Cuenca, currently Mazón’s advisor in the former president’s Alicante office, the judge sees “relevant” the new statements as witnesses of all the protagonists of this subplot of the case, which are added to that of Cayetano García Ramírez, the senior official who spoke the longest on the phone with Pradas that afternoon.
The resolution agrees to the testimonies of Ricardo García, the undersecretary of Pradas, and the general attorney of the Generalitat on the day of the events. On the other hand, the judge agreed to a confrontation between Cuenca and Pradas on January 12.
Source: www.eldiario.es
