Begoña Gómez has filed an appeal with the Provincial Court of Madrid in which she accuses judge Juan Carlos Peinado of circumventing the jury law to conclude the investigation without allowing the parties to make new requests. “It gives the impression that an objective is sought, even if it is at the cost of massacring the truth,” she states in her complaint. The advisor to the wife of the President of the Government, Cristina Álvarez, has also challenged the decision before the higher court, denying any irregularity in her activity: “Does the cook who prepares a private meal for the president’s family commit embezzlement?”, she says.
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Gómez defends that her actions were completely regular and denies any irregularity in the creation of the extraordinary professorship that, for Peinado, constitutes the basis of the crime of influence peddling. “That reflects either a conscious fallacy or the utmost disinterest in what each and every one of the University’s officials have stated,” points out lawyer Antonio Camacho, recalling once again that the professorship was free. The defense also questions the “unusual speed” with which the judge has closed the investigation and that he does so after agreeing to carry out proceedings but without allowing time for them to be carried out.
“This does not constitute a minor infraction, since it is depriving all parties of the right granted to them by law to request additional proceedings once those foreseen have been carried out,” emphasizes the lawyer, who considers that this way of acting by the magistrate constitutes a violation of the fundamental right to effective judicial protection without defenselessness, recognized in Article 24 of the Constitution. This precept is also violated, according to Gómez’s defense, by Peinado’s decision to leave the wife of the President of the Government on the verge of trial before several appeals filed by the defenses have been resolved.
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In the brief presented this Monday, the lawyer tries to refute the judge’s arguments for prosecuting Gómez for influence peddling, embezzlement, business corruption, and misappropriation. Camacho considers the comparison between Pedro Sánchez and Fernando VII made by the judge in his latest order “absolutely unacceptable”. For the lawyer, that statement is “more characteristic of the historical era that the cited phrase recreates” and shows “very little respect for the image of impartiality that a magistrate must convey.”
Regarding the crime of influence peddling, the judge’s thesis is that since Gómez is married to the President of the Government, she would have influenced the rector of the Complutense University to allow her to direct the Chair of Competitive Social Transformation. “But the order does not provide a single piece of evidence that this actually occurred, not a single piece of evidence,” emphasizes Camacho, who reproaches the investigating judge for not having taken into account the testimonies of the rector and vice-rectors who have testified as witnesses and who ruled out any irregularity and assured that they considered Gómez suitable for the chair.
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[Breaking News. Update coming soon]
