The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office does not give in. It wants the indictment of Jésica Rodríguez, former partner of the former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos, sentenced to 24 years in prison for the mask case, to be maintained. Prosecutor Carmen García Cerdá asks the Appeals Chamber of the National Court to reject the appeal filed by Rodríguez and support the decision adopted on July 3 by the investigating judge of the Koldo case, Ismael Moreno, to grant her the status of investigated person. The magistrate proceeded at the request of the public prosecutor’s office and after the Supreme Court considered it proven that the woman was given jobs in several public companies where she was paid without performing any work.
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In a document, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the public prosecutor’s office dismantles the argument of Rodríguez’s defense that Judge Moreno’s decision was adopted without any motivation and rejects that her indictment violates her fundamental rights. The prosecutor maintains that “there is a detailed and thorough motivation,” and therefore, in her opinion, “it is not possible to appreciate a violation of the right to effective judicial protection.” And she emphasizes that the investigating judge’s resolution “allows the reasons by virtue of which Rodríguez’s summons as an investigated person has been agreed upon to be known.”
Ábalos’s ex-partner was summoned to appear before the National Court on July 20. The woman attended accompanied by her defense and exercised her right to remain silent. Rodríguez had already testified twice in court. But she did so before the Supreme Court and as a witness. First, during the investigation phase and then in the trial in which the former minister was convicted. Following that sentence, the Prosecutor’s Office asked Judge Moreno to change her status to investigated.
During the first session of the oral hearing, Rodríguez admitted that she was paid for two years at Ineco, although she never performed any work for this company, and assured that Ábalos was aware of this situation. What she declared about the time she was employed contradicted what Joseba García, brother of former ministerial advisor Koldo García, had stated before the court a few hours earlier. While she recounted that, as soon as she arrived at the company, she was told that her role was to be Joseba’s administrative assistant and that it was he who told her to stay at home, he stated that he was not Rodríguez’s boss and that he only spoke to her on occasion as “colleagues.”
When convicting Ábalos, the Supreme Court focused on Rodríguez: it warned of her “not negligible and potential responsibility” and pointed to her as a beneficiary of influence peddling and embezzlement crimes. The defense argues that this matter has already been judged and, therefore, cannot be brought to trial again. The Prosecutor’s Office, however, insists that the facts that were tried were limited to the participation of the former Minister of Transport and his former ministerial advisor, Koldo García.
The public prosecutor’s office has also expressed its opposition to lifting the indictment of Ignacio Zaldívar, a former senior official of Adif also named in the Supreme Court’s ruling, who has also filed an appeal asking the Appeals Chamber to correct the judge’s decision to summon him as an investigated person. When convicting Ábalos, the high court noted that Zaldívar had actively involved himself in ensuring that Rodríguez moved to Tragsatec (another public company dependent on Transport) when her contract with Ineco ended. Ábalos’s ex-partner received a total of 43,978 euros from both public companies between 2019 and 2021.
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