Businessman Julio Martínez Martínez ratified this Tuesday before judge José Luis Calama, instructor of the Plus Ultra case in the Audiencia Nacional, the document he sent on Monday to the magistrate to point to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as the person who “set the steps to follow” in the negotiations that led to the 53 million euro rescue that the airline received from Pedro Sánchez’s Government after the coronavirus pandemic. Several sources present at the interrogation insist that the accused, who testified for nearly three hours after giving a script twist to his strategy and offering to “collaborate” with justice, has implicated the former president in the work for the airline, but has maintained that he does not know if the former head of the Executive mediated with anyone to expedite the aid.
As he already stated in the document sent to the Audiencia Nacional, Martínez Martínez only answered this Tuesday the questions from the magistrate (who interrogated him for about an hour and a quarter), from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and from his own defense. The administrator of the consultancy Análisis Relevante did not want to respond to the popular accusations, led in this summary by the PP. The hearing began with the questions from judge Calama. And then it was the turn of the public prosecutor’s office, represented by prosecutor Elena Lorente.
Legal sources indicate that Martínez told the judge that he began working for Plus Ultra before the Venezuelan administration and that, later and after the pandemic, he extended his work to Spain. According to these sources, the businessman even stressed that he landed in the South American country thanks to the former socialist leader, where he came to have the then vice president of the Chavista State, Delcy Rodríguez, as his interlocutor. He also met her through Zapatero himself, he added.
The businessman has come to portray the former president as a person who channeled his contacts through Análisis Relevante and other companies, while he was merely a transmitter of the directives set by the former socialist leader. In this vein, according to the consulted sources, the judge has even described Martínez Martínez as a kind of “go-between”.
The businessman stated that Análisis Relevante charged for Zapatero’s reports and dealings, and then he paid the former president. As he already explained in the document delivered on Monday, Martínez Martínez explained that when the Plus Ultra rescue began to be questioned, the consultancy and the airline agreed to defer payment over time and that part of these amounts would be invoiced to other companies of the businessman. “In total, the amount paid as fees for mediating in obtaining public aid amounted, approximately, to 1% of the amount obtained as agreed,” specified the document sent to the instructor José Luis Calama.
In the document delivered to the Audiencia Nacional, Martínez Martínez stated that Análisis Relevante and Plus Ultra signed a contract in July 2020 for 5,000 euros per month “for the advice that Zapatero had been providing since May.” Another contract was added to that one, directly linked to obtaining the rescue, which stipulated the payment by an airline of a 1% commission on the financing obtained (about 530,000 euros) as “consideration for the services rendered and the success of the operation” before SEPI. The National Police seized a copy of this document during the search of Martínez Martínez’s home.
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Julio Martínez Martínez entered the Audiencia Nacional around 08:45 this Tuesday, accompanied by his lawyer María Dolores Márquez de Prado. The businessman arrived at the court ready to ratify the document sent a day earlier to judge José Luis Calama, where he pointed directly against the former president and showed his willingness to “collaborate and contribute to the clarification of the facts.” “In his role as a consultant, it was Rodríguez Zapatero who set the steps to follow,” the document signed by the owner of Análisis Relevante emphasizes.
“Zapatero remained outside the shareholding [of Análisis Relevante] and formal bodies of the company, but he was the one who led it and decided all matters of strategy and client acquisition,” delved the document by Julio Martínez Martínez, which also implicated the former socialist leader for the airline’s rescue. A maneuver that inflicts enormous damage on the defense of the former PSOE leader, who disassociated himself before the judge from the aid to Plus Ultra. In fact, in recent hours, the former head of the Executive has received more severe blows, dealt by two executives of the airline. The president Julio Martínez Sola and the financial director. Both have attributed to him actions to favor them in obtaining the 53 million euros of public money obtained during the pandemic.
References to the daughters
During the statement, according to legal sources, the owner of Análisis Relevante evaded some questions and responded with several “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know” —for example, he did not delve into the origin of the cash (286,000 euros) found in his house—. Even so, he maintained the line set by his document and repeated that Zapatero finally informed him on February 26, 2021, that SEPI was going to grant the rescue to Plus Ultra. He also assured that the president’s daughters did report layout work and that, at some point, he continued to pay them for being family of the former head of the Executive.
The judge also asked Martínez Martínez about the creation of an offshore company in Dubai, which investigators believe was conceived to divert money from the alleged commission paid in exchange for the airline’s rescue. Legal sources indicate that the accused clarified that this company was only a project and was never constituted. However, the businessman did confirm that, as investigators maintain, the possibility of forming such a company was planned during a meal. The summary indicates that it was at a restaurant in Madrid, Portonovo, and that the lunch was managed by Zapatero’s secretary, Gertrudis Alcázar, who sent a bodyguard of the former president to the establishment to make the reservation. During his statement before the judge on June 17, the former socialist leader claimed not to remember if he was at the meal where it was discussed and completely disassociated himself from the creation project. “Never in my life have I heard of an offshore company,” Zapatero defended.
