The Provincial Court of Madrid has asked Judge Juan Carlos Peinado to provide “full testimony” in the case opened against Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, before deciding whether to close it as requested by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the defense of the suspect. This is stated in a ruling dated September 9, to which elDiario.es has had access. The date for the deliberation and ruling on the aforementioned appeals is set for September 30. Sources of the prosecution consulted by this newspaper affirm that this is an unusual move and that it may anticipate the closing of the investigation.
On July 8, Gómez decided to appeal to the Provincial Court of Madrid, the court above Judge Peinado, to request the dismissal of what she calls a “universal investigation” against her. In the appeal, Gómez’s lawyer claimed that the magistrate had initiated a case on “the life and work” of the wife of the head of the Executive in what amounts to a “prospective” investigation expressly prohibited by law.
The day before, on July 7, the Public Prosecutor’s Office also appealed to the Provincial Court to put order in the “procedural drift” of Judge Peinado. The Public Prosecutor’s Office considered that the magistrate is ignoring the limits that the Provincial Court itself imposed on him in the investigation, that he is giving a “very broad” dimension to the case without clarifying its true motives and that he continually acts through “generalities”, with a “lack of specificity” that prevents the investigated from exercising “a dignified defense”. The Economic Crime Section even spoke in its appeal of a “general cause” against Gómez.
In the last four months, none of the investigations launched by the judge have yielded clear indications of a crime against any of those under investigation: Gómez, the businessman Carlos Barrabés and the rector of the Complutense University, Joaquín Goyache. The magistrate has also not clarified what he is accusing them of. In addition, the investigations have already accumulated two exculpatory reports from the Civil Guard and half a dozen testimonies that deny irregularities in the events that were originally denounced by the ultra-right union Manos Limpias.
The judge’s investigation focuses on several fronts without ruling out any conduct by Begoña Gómez since her husband became President of the Government. One is the million-dollar public contracts obtained by the businessman Carlos Barrabés, whose home was searched a few weeks ago by the Civil Guard. Another is the relationship that Gómez established at the Instituto de Empresa (IE) with the owners of Globalia, owner of the company Air Europa, and which was later rescued by the Government during the pandemic. And a third branch is the relationship of the wife of the President of the Government with the Complutense University of Madrid.
Source: www.eldiario.es
