The Prosecutor’s Office has asked the Supreme Court to annul the sentence that sentences former State Attorney General Álvaro García to two years of disqualification for the dissemination of confidential information of businessman Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The lieutenant prosecutor of the Supreme Court, María Ángeles Sánchez Conde, maintains that the judges of the Criminal Chamber ignored “without any explanation” the evidence that exonerated García Ortiz and that they convicted him for a “non-existent leak”, according to a writing advanced by El Español and to which elDiario.es has had access.
The prosecutor defends that the resolution signed by judges Andrés Martínez Arrieta, Manuel Marchena, Juan Ramón Berdugo, Antonio del Moral and Carmen Lamela violates fundamental rights of the former top representative of the Public Ministry. Specifically, the right to the presumption of innocence, criminal legality and effective judicial protection.
Thus, the prosecutor affirms that the judges made an “incomplete selection of the facts” by omitting the key testimonies of journalists who claimed to have the email of the businessman’s confession of tax fraud before the attorney general obtained it on the night of March 13, 2024.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the sentence ignores exculpatory evidence that shows that the information was already public when it came into the hands of García Ortiz. “When the email reached the State Attorney General it had already been disclosed and this is proven although the sentence omits it,” says the document, which also questions the fact that the sentence “omits” that the aforementioned email “was also provided” to the senior prosecutor of the Community of Madrid, Almudena Lastra.
Sánchez Conde argues that García Ortiz’s “hurry” to obtain the emails exchanged between González Amador’s lawyer and the prosecutor who accused him of tax fraud in search of a compliance agreement were motivated by the need to write an informative note to respond “quickly” to the information from various media that questioned the actions of the Prosecutor’s Office and pointed to an action for “political reasons.”
“Insidious and slanderous information”, in the words of the prosecutor, which “had the support and contribution of media from the government of the Autonomous Community of Madrid.” The prosecutor also highlights that González Amador’s “environment” made a “biased and mendacious disclosure” on March 13, 2024, of the response issued by the Prosecutor’s Office to the businessman’s offer of a pact. And remember that Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, Ayuso’s chief of staff, launched the “hoax” that the Prosecutor’s Office had offered an agreement and then withdraw it.
Condemnation for the press release
Sánchez Conde also accuses the Criminal Chamber of introducing a “new fact that radically disrupts the purpose of the process” by considering the aforementioned statement from the Prosecutor’s Office on the case to be criminal, something that was not debated or imputed during the investigation and that was introduced in the sentence “in a deliberately ambiguous way.” Likewise, the Prosecutor’s Office affirms that the Supreme Court created “a type of crime” by punishing the dissemination of information that was no longer secret, which exceeds the Penal Code.
On the other hand, the prosecutor also describes as “difficult to understand” and lacking motivation the compensation of 10,000 euros imposed, as well as the order to pay the costs of the private prosecution.
In its brief, the Prosecutor’s Office relies on the dissenting vote of the progressive judges Ana Ferrer and Susana Polo who requested his acquittal. In that dissenting vote, both judges believe that the conclusions reached by their colleagues “imply a violation of the right to the presumption of innocence.” Ferrer and Polo denounce that the conviction makes a “very open” inference of guilt and that there are other alternative conclusions that have not been taken into account.
The sentence that Sánchez Conde asks to annul considered it proven that the then state attorney general “or a person close to him” leaked to the press the confession of tax fraud by Ayuso’s partner. The ruling understands that the Prosecutor’s Office press release on the case also revealed confidential data and that “the State Attorney General cannot respond to false news by committing a crime.”
The judges did not question that the journalists could have had access to this data before García Ortiz himself but they defended “that a reserved data is known does not neutralize the duty of confidentiality of the attorney general.” “The leaked email had to come from the State Attorney General’s Office,” the Supreme Court ruled.
Source: www.eldiario.es
