The trial of José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García, and Víctor de Aldama is entering the final stretch of witness testimonies, and most of the cards are starting to be face up. The tandem formed at the beginning of the trial by the defenses of the former minister and his former advisor has not derailed, but the lawyers are no longer pedaling as synchronized, and, from time to time, Ábalos’s lawyer, Marino Turiel, intervenes to exclude his client from an action attributed to Koldo García, and, at other times, it is García’s lawyer, Leticia de la Hoz, who interjects to try to show that the advisor did nothing without the mandate, or at least the consent, of his boss. These strategies became evident in this Tuesday’s session, the seventh of the trial, when Ábalos’s former secretary blamed the advisor for Aldama’s constant visits to the most restricted area of the ministry or when Reyes Maroto’s former chief of staff at the Ministry of Industry pointed to Koldo García as the person who managed a meeting for Aldama’s partners in the hydrocarbon plot.
The testimony of Juan Ignacio Díaz Bidart, who was Maroto’s trusted man, was one of the most anticipated of the day because the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office places the meeting that took place in Industry at the center of the efforts made by the plot formed by Ábalos and Koldo García to expedite the obtaining of a license as hydrocarbon marketers for Villafuel, the company with which Aldama had partnered. This meeting, according to the accusations, is at the origin of the purchase of the house in La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz) for Ábalos and his family to enjoy. Díaz Bidart has confirmed that the meeting in Industry took place on December 28, 2020, and that it was the minister’s advisor who requested it.
Responding to questions from prosecutor Alejandro Luzón, the former chief of staff assured that the meeting was attended by businessman Claudio Rivas, whom investigators consider the true owner of Villafuel, and businesswoman Carmen Pano, as well as a friend of hers who acted as her driver. According to Díaz Bidart, before arriving at the meeting, Ábalos’s advisor had only told him that the businessmen wanted to meet with him about a matter related to marketing hydrocarbons, and, when they explained at the meeting that their intention was to obtain a license, the then chief of staff told them that he had no competence for that and referred them to the Secretary of State for Energy. “That’s what I have noted down,” Díaz Bidart stated.
The former senior official, who is not charged in any case, referred throughout his testimony to the daily work notes he supposedly kept in his agenda, which led the Anti-Corruption prosecutor to ask him to try to recall beyond his notes to answer questions such as whether he ever met with Koldo García and Aldama, meetings which he denied. He also does not remember, he assured, if he informed Koldo García of the outcome of the meeting at the ministry (the advisor was only present at the beginning of the meeting, to introduce the two parties, and then left) and if he reported that meeting to the minister. “That day there were four important issues on the table and I don’t remember if I informed her about this one,” he explained.
Responding to questions from the accusations, led by the PP, Díaz Bidart revealed that Aldama once attended a meeting at the Ministry of Industry related to a music promoter who wanted a subsidy for an event, but he did not specify whether Maroto was at that meeting with the businessman involved in the plot. “It’s a meeting that the minister closed with another person who attended,” explained the chief of staff.
While the accusations have tried, without much success, to glean more data on the efforts made by Koldo García and Ábalos in favor of the Villafuel license (which was obtained more than a year after Ábalos and his advisor left the Government), the defenses of the minister and his former assistant have tried to demonstrate that such influence did not occur. In the case of Ábalos’s lawyer, he kept the minister out of that mediation, even if it meant placing all responsibility on Koldo García. “Are you aware that Ábalos’s name was used to arrange the meeting?” Turiel asked, to which Díaz Bidart replied “no.” García’s lawyer, for her part, brandished Aldama’s meeting in Industry, supposedly closed by Maroto, as proof that the businessman moved in high circles without needing to take Ábalos’s advisor as a guide.
Aldama’s easy access to the Ministry of Transport was again highlighted this Tuesday with the testimony of Ábalos’s former secretary, Ana María Aranda, who corroborated that, as several former senior officials of that department declared last week, the businessman entered and exited at any time and moved without restrictions through the area of the building reserved for the minister. However, Aranda’s testimony pointed more to Koldo García than to the former socialist leader, as she assured that on most occasions she saw him with the assistant and never with Ábalos. These meetings, the secretary clarified, were never scheduled, and, contrary to what happened with other visits, the ministry’s security office never called her to corroborate if they were waiting for Aldama and to allow him access.
Aranda also pointed to Koldo in two other matters that the accusations intend to demonstrate as part of the plot. The first is the participation of Ábalos’s ex-partner, Jésica Rodríguez, in official trips. The secretary stated that Rodríguez attended 13 out of 293 and that the advisor always paid for them with a personal credit card, never with public funds. The second, several safe-conduct passes that were issued by Transport during the state of alarm due to the COVID-19 pandemic to allow the mobility of different people under the pretext of attending alleged meetings in Transport, a procedure that Anti-Corruption considers part of the efforts that the minister and his advisor made for Aldama and his circle in exchange for commissions.
The secretary assured that it was always Koldo who asked for them. “Did you understand that when Koldo told you to arrange one of these interviews, it was because he was acting on behalf of the minister or on his own behalf?” Luzón asked. “I understood that it was part of his job; he asked me to execute an administrative act, which was to complete that form [for a safe-conduct pass], and I understood that he was doing it as part of his job, which was for the minister, of course,” Aranda stated. The former minister’s lawyer asked if Ábalos specifically requested any safe-conduct pass. “No,” replied the secretary, who was also emphatic when questioned by the defense of the former socialist leader that Aldama always went to see the advisor.
During this Tuesday morning, Aldama’s former secretary, Piedad Losada, also testified, stating that it was common for the businessman to tell her he was going to meetings at Transport and that they referred to Ábalos as “the boss.” Losada, who is charged in the part of the case being investigated by the Audiencia Nacional and only answered questions from Anti-Corruption related to her daily work, also recounted that she made arrangements for the purchase of the house in Cádiz by the company Have Got Time because Aldama asked her to, and that she always identified Rivas as the owner of that company and Leonor González Pano as his “employee,” a version that coincides with the accusations’ thesis, which considers this businesswoman, who appeared as the company’s administrator, as a front for Rivas.
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