Every time a witness arrives at their seat, the presiding judge, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, asks them: “Do you know the defendants?” And the witness gives them a look as if it were a lineup (“let’s see, you, stand up and turn around”). “I know them from TV,” one said last week. Several affirm they do, others clarify their relationship with each one. Juan Ignacio Díaz Bidart, former chief of staff for Industry, is one of the latter. He appears in a blue suit, sits before the court, and automatically scrutinizes the three defendants. “I know Koldo,” he says confidently. “Not Aldama, and I’ve greeted Ábalos once.” And when he mentions Ábalos, he raises his hand to recreate how he greeted him. That’s how he greeted him, raising his hand slightly. It’s the craziest moment of the trial. That nervous witness who, in the interest of transparency, says he once greeted Ábalos and recreates the greeting he gave him, in a distant manner. Ábalos watches him from the bench, amazed.
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—Let’s see, how did you do it? —the presiding judge leans forward, genuinely interested.
—Like this —the witness raises his hand again.
—Did you always greet him like that? Didn’t you move your hand? Was it a fixed-wrist, stiff-hand greeting, like truck drivers?
—Yes, yes, like that.
—Very well, you may withdraw now, that’s enough.
—Thank you very much, goodbye —he bids farewell, waving his hand from left to right just as the Queen of England used to do.
—Wait, how did you do it with your hand just now? Sit down again.
This conversation doesn’t happen by a miracle. The trial, awaiting the testimonies of Aldama, Ábalos, and Koldo García next week, enters a very dangerous lull. The first witness of the morning is named Ana María Aranda Jaraíces, and she was José Luis Ábalos’s secretary. She accompanies her answers with her hands, reinforcing what she says with gentle movements, moving her hands here and there like a Luis Cobos of judicial statements.
She wears a white t-shirt, a pale green jacket, glasses, and a card with a large ‘T’ for witness hangs from her, like Mr. T. Her workplace was in the antechamber of the minister’s office, so the prosecution’s interest is to know who passed through there and for what purpose. Who facilitated access to Mr. Aldama? Was there a direct elevator to the office? Did Aldama park his car in a special spot in the ministry? Ábalos’s secretary answers what she can. Many of her answers are no longer accompanied by her hands but by Koldo García’s large, accused head, who laughs when she is asked about matters he denies with his large head while gesticulating wildly, and the witness confirms with a less emphatic “no.”
“In 13 out of the 293 trips the minister made, Jésica Rodríguez was included. Koldo García paid for the trips: he gave a card and I charged them. It was a personal card,” says Ana María Aranda.
Was it a card ending in 1068? they ask her. The witness can’t believe it: how is she supposed to remember Koldo’s card numbers if 90% of Spaniards don’t know their mother’s phone number? What’s next, the PUK code of the ministry’s security guard? Ábalos’s former secretary —who knows what a hustle this woman has had during the politician’s crazy years, that job must have been like being Paulina Rubio’s press chief during the pandemic— is starting to look like she wants to go home. To go home forever, and never again be a secretary to anyone in the entertainment world.
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