Their seven lordships ―six gentlemen and one lady, to be precise―, with their cuffs, their armchairs, and their dais, were no longer there. The magistrates remained in body but their minds seemed to have flown to the neighboring Villa de París park through the windows of the Plenary Hall. The experts spoke of hash, icloud, and operating systems. The defenses wanted (but only a little) a piece of evidence they had requested, and the prosecution made its all-in bet: all or nothing. Technicality by technicality, legal and IT, the tangle of the Koldo case was getting more and more complicated until the head of Anti-Corruption verbalized the widespread feeling: “The public prosecutor’s office honestly doesn’t understand anything.”
Read more Zapatero calls the national priority agreed by PP and Vox «unconstitutional» and «discriminatory»
The trial for the alleged rigging in the purchase of masks during the pandemic has advanced to a new phase dominated by experts. Their role is to explain the reports they prepared at the time on specific aspects of the judicial investigation. “Try to be clear,” pleaded the anti-corruption prosecutor, Alejandro Luzón, before delving into the computer analysis of the audios and messages found on Koldo García’s devices, one of the main pieces of evidence. They try, but it doesn’t always work out for them. And on this occasion, the audience has not made it easy at all. When the prosecutor began the interrogation, the lawyer for the former ministerial advisor, Leticia de la Hoz, went for the jugular. Let’s only talk about the chain of custody, she proposed. It’s just that those files ―those with which we learned that “Carlota is incredibly good”― are no longer in the Supreme Court case, they have also jumped out the window and fallen into the National Court, she argued. “But did you request the evidence?” said the president of the court, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, clearly bewildered. Neither he nor anyone else expected this move. Check.
Incredulity seized the room at times. The magistrate sought his lifeline in the prosecutor. “And how do you see it?” “The public prosecutor’s office is unable to say anything more,” confessed Luzón. The lawyer for the popular prosecution ―led by the PP― took up the gauntlet and reproached his colleague for trying to use a specific report to “sow doubt about the entire Civil Guard investigation.” “That is ‘procedural bad faith’,” he affirmed. There is no worse insult. “I cannot tolerate that,” she fumed. And on top of that, she had warned them!… Their lordships had to stop, go to deliberate, and return. They opted for a Solomonic decision that quickly fell apart. And the expert evidence was presented without limits.
The consequence is not minor. The farce hid a crucial question: how far the Supreme Court will be able to rule. The magistrates will be able to rule on everything that has been said in their courtroom, which will now include the debate on the authenticity of some key files for the entire mega-case. Their verdict will fully impact another plot, that of alleged public works rigging. And, as the head of the Judicial Power, their word will be the word of God. Check, but not checkmate. The outcome of the game will arrive next Monday, when other experts ―the Civil Guard agents who searched Koldo García’s house― detail how the integrity of the material seized two years ago was ensured. “Are the ‘chistorra’ messages authentic?” asked De la Hoz. That is the question.
The Civil Guard officers have already established that there are no indications of “manipulation” of those files. It was like childbirth, because before that they had lectured on “digital fingerprints.” The defenses tried to correct the course but there was no way. Meanwhile, Ábalos brushed dust off his jacket; García rubbed his eyes; and some magistrate looked at the ceiling in search of divine mercy. “Please, do not interrupt. This is complicated enough,” Martínez Arrieta also implored.
Read more Ignasi Camós, Director General of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts, dies at 56
