The Supreme Court has entered fully into the investigation to which the Minister of Transportation and Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos. Waiting for reports on its assets and communications that has commissioned the Civil Guard and in the midst of Víctor Aldama’s strategy to launch accusations on droppers, Judge Leopoldo Puente said Thursday the indications that are recorded so far against him and that they are specified in three properties that would have benefited in exchange for their intercession in contracts. These indications support their imputation for crimes of criminal organization, influences and bribery.
This is collected by the magistrate in the car in which, after taking a statement this Thursday, he withdraws his passport and prohibits him from leaving Spain. The judge emphasizes that “nothing less than three properties” linked to Ábalos directly or indirectly present as “common denominator” the “continuous presence” of Aldama, a businessman outside the health sector who won 6.6 million euros in the worst Moment of the pandemic thanks to the mask contracts awarded by entities that depended on transport and other departments.
The instructor refers to the enjoyment of a villa in Cádiz, the payment of the rental of the luxury apartment of who was his partner and the lease with option to buy a floor on the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, one of the main arteries of the capital, for a sale price (750,000 euros) “apparently much lower than the market.” The judge emphasizes the fact that “of all” the “existing” floors or villas, whoever was a minister had opted for those linked to the leader of the corrupt network.
The use of the Chalet of Cádiz and the payment of a rent of 2,700 euros per month of the house of who was their partner already appeared in the UCO report last October that narrowed the fence on Ábalos. The agents considered that they were the main “consideration” that would have received the result of their efforts for the plot. However, the existence of the Castilian property was revealed by Aldama in the first letter that contributed to the Supreme Courts after being released.
In that letter, Aldama said he agreed to give Ábalos a property valued at 1.9 million euros. To do this, he contributed a “lease with purchase option” in favor of Ábalos of a house owned by the entrepreneur at number 164 of the Paseo de la Castellana, one of the main arteries of the capital. Supposedly, the contract began on April 24, 2019 and expired on February 14, 2024.
The commissioner argued that this operation actually covered up the “guarantee” of the bits that the then minister was going to charge in the future of certain construction companies for works that were already preaded. The agreement was that, if he could not collect those commissions, he would keep the floor. According to Aldama, the property was never occupied by Ábalos and “no rent was paid”, since “it was a mere trustee.” In an interview in the country, Ábalos said that the relative to this property “is all lie” and that, although it does not remember whether it came to sign that contract, it was “impossible” to materialize it and that there was a tenant on the floor.
Aldama’s accusations
The car dated Thursday reveals that the bridge magistrate grants credibility apart from Aldama’s accusations. Although, for the moment, it leaves other suspicions launched by the commission agency out of its resolutions. However, during the interrogation of this Thursday he asked if he was on the floors that Aldama says he rented in Madrid so that the then minister, his advisor Koldo García and the current head of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, held meetings with “ Ladies ”. The latter contributed documents that prove that it was not in the capital on that date. Ábalos said Thursday in the Supreme Court that he did not remember having been in those floors, according to the sources consulted.
In another order issued on Thursday, the magistrate confirms the need to analyze on the phones intervened to Aldama there are messages with Torres and with the current ‘number three’ of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, as a way to check the accusations that the businessman has launched.
It is the second time that Ábalos appeared before Judge Puente after voluntarily doing so last December. Then, as he did this Thursday, he denied his involvement in the plot that he allegedly worn with rigged contracts and deny that he would have benefited from commissions or prebendas. December was a more extensive statement in which he also pointed to who his advisor was and tried to disconnect from Aldama.
The investigations still have a long journey, in which it will investigate the millionaire mask contracts origin of the investigation, but it will also be examined if the plot extended its influence on other public awards. In fact, the magistrate recalls in another resolution in which he rejects the resource of Ábalos against the investigation of his assets and the designation of the UCO as a judicial police that the object of this cause “is not limited exclusively” to the contracts of the contracts of Pandemia And remember that “other intermediation and management actions related to different activities” in which Ábalos and the rest of the accused were referred to.
Source: www.eldiario.es
