Former Development Minister José Luis Ábalos has presented a call for reform that, if rejected, will be an appeal against the decision of National Court Judge Ismael Moreno to close the door on his entry into the Koldo case as an injured party. He insists that the dissemination of information about the case causes him “irreparable harm” and on his right to refute the audit of the Ministry of Transportation that the current head, Óscar Puente, commissioned and that contributed to the investigation.
This report is, in fact, your hanger to request access, since it details the irregularities in the purchase of masks during the pandemic from the instrumental company Management Solutions and establishes the responsibility of Ábalos or his office. Added to this are the leaks of the summary for which a file is already open in the Madrid courts. “It does not seem possible to deny that the handling of this file is causing irreparable harm to my client,” states the appeal to which ABC has had access.
Ábalos requested access to the file as an injured party when it emerged that the judge had obtained the aforementioned audit of the Ministry of Transport, which, according to him, “only seeks a short circuit in the description of responsibility” for the purchase of the masks, ignoring the dimension of the situation “in which it was carried out and” omitting the participation of other authorities and positions involved in these decisions.
He presented an expert report that refuted the legitimacy of the Ministry’s report and attached it to his request to start the procedure, to which he has not yet been summoned due to the investigation, as an injured party. The fight against corruption opposed it because it considered that “the facts investigated, in principle, could constitute crimes of criminal organization, money laundering, corruption, influence peddling and against the Public Treasury” and “it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to try to match Mr. Ábalos’ condition as being offended or injured by any of the aforementioned crimes.
“The simple divergence with the content of a report should not in any case allow it to be presented as injured,” said the prosecutor, in an argument shared by Judge Ismael Moreno and against which the former minister is now appealing when he finds himself “the object of such extreme mention with the alleged asepsis of being formed by the public administration” as that included in the audit, which is “unaffordable and damaging reputation” and against which he asks to be able to fight within the cause.
