The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has requested the National Court to incorporate the statements given by businessman Víctor de Aldama and former ministerial advisor Koldo García in two cases being heard by this body: the one related to the rigging of public works, in which the former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán is being investigated, and the one related to payments from the socialist party, which for now remains under secrecy of the investigation. Judge Ismael Moreno has agreed to the prosecutor’s request.
According to the documentation accessed by EL PAÍS, Anti-Corruption prosecutor Luis Pastor requested on May 6, the same day the trial for the mask case ended in the Supreme Court, that the respective statements be incorporated into the other two ongoing cases. The prosecutor expressly requested those given by Koldo and Aldama, but not the one given by former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos, who was the third accused.
Prosecutor Pastor indicates that the statements of the former ministerial advisor and the middleman about “cash payments of certain amounts by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party” are related to the ongoing investigations, “and such statements may provide data that were previously unknown” and which, according to the prosecutor, “are considered of interest for the investigated facts.”
Judge Ismael Moreno, who is the instructor in both cases, agreed to the request this Friday. “An official letter shall be sent to the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court so that they send copies of the statements,” reads his order.
Businessman Víctor de Aldama, who has already testified in the secret case about PSOE payments and has handed over an envelope that had as sender the current president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, stated that the party was financed illegally and that this package contains proof of it. He also indicated that construction companies paid bribes to the party in exchange for rigging public works contracts and that, according to what Koldo told him, part of that money went to finance the party.
On the other hand, the former advisor based his defense on trying to justify that the cash he handled came from the PSOE expense settlements and not from money that Aldama paid them in exchange for favors. In fact, his lawyer Leticia de la Hoz provided several expense sheets in which, as she sought to demonstrate, there was a lack of control in the party and no thorough examination was made of where the tickets paid came from. Koldo also acknowledged for the first time that when he spoke of “chistorras” in his conversations, he was referring to 500 euro bills, as the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard had maintained in its reports. On the contrary, former PSOE manager Mariano Moreno, who testified as a witness, maintained that such high bills were never paid from the party and stated that the control was exhaustive.
