The head of court number 8 of the Instruction Section of the Madrid Trial Court, Rosario de Fátima Espinosa, has asked the Prosecutor’s Office if it is competent to investigate the purchase of the controversial luxury penthouse by the Ayuso Government. It is the first step taken by the magistrate, following the complaint filed by Iustitia Europa, Más Madrid, and the PSOE at the beginning of August, to begin investigating whether there are indications of a crime in the acquisition of this property for more than six million euros by the public company Planifica Madrid.
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It was on July 29 when EL PAÍS revealed the purchase of this property for 6.4 million euros by Planifica Madrid, which was made on April 14 and had been kept secret until then. At first, the Ayuso Government gave confusing explanations about the use that was going to be given to that luxury building and assured that it would serve as a temporary office for the president and a “small group” of her collaborators while works were carried out at the Puerta del Sol headquarters, of which nothing was known until then and which were awarded later, on August 7. When the transaction was made public, it also became clear that the property could not be used as an office due to urban planning regulations, as its use is solely residential.
As soon as this operation came to light, the opposition parties Más Madrid and the PSOE filed a complaint with the courts regarding the purchase for possible crimes of embezzlement of public funds, administrative prevarication, and disloyal administration of public assets, among others. In addition, two individuals and the association Iustitia Europa, which usually acts as a popular accusation in corruption cases, filed a complaint.
The Prosecutor’s Office combined the documentation into a single file, since in all cases the board of directors of the public company Planifica Madrid is denounced. In mid-August, a non-working month for the courts, all this documentation reached Judge Espinosa’s desk. Once September began, the magistrate took the first step to start or not the investigative proceedings.
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The day after EL PAÍS published the scandal, the Community of Madrid announced that it would put the penthouse up for sale. The deadline for offers on the property ended on September 7 and, as was learned this Thursday, it closed without any offers for its acquisition. Planifica Madrid will put it back on the market this Friday.
On Thursday, the report on the operation by which the penthouse was purchased was also published, and it does not answer many of the questions that the decision to buy it and to rent it for 36,000 euros a year by the Presidency Department of the Community of Madrid continues to raise. In that report, it is read that the Government needed to have an “institutional property” intended as a workplace, a rest area, and “occasional accommodation” for visiting authorities or “the authorities of the Community of Madrid themselves,” which grants Ayuso the authority to use it. It also refers to its possible use as an institutional headquarters “in crisis management contexts” such as in the event of another pandemic breaking out.
One of the main unknowns is who ordered the purchase of that property, whether it was an initiative of Planifica Madrid, which according to the regional Government scans the real estate market looking for properties, or if it came from the Presidency itself. What has been confirmed is that Ayuso visited the house once its acquisition was formalized.
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