The businessman Victor de Aldamaalleged commissioner of the “Koldo affair”, left the Soto del Real penitentiary center this evening where he remained in preventive detention in connection with another judicial investigation, that relating to an alleged hydrocarbon fraud.
Aldama, who told the Koldo affair investigator on Thursday that he had paid cash commissions to senior officials like the former minister Jose Luis Abalos or number 3 of the PSOE, Santos Cerdanleft the prison around 9:30 p.m., by decision of the judge in the Hydrocarbons case, Santiago Pedraz.
Upon his release from the penitentiary center, Aldama spoke to journalists who were waiting for his departure to respond to the references made about him this afternoon by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
“He called me a ‘criminal’ and a ‘character.’ This man must know that He is a mythomaniac and suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. because when he was asked twice, once in Congress and once in Portugal, if he knew me, he did not answer,” he said.
“And so, when a photo of me comes out – compared to the one published a few days ago in the media in which we see them together -, he already knows mesaying it’s a photo that can be taken with anyone. No, the photos you take with someone are taken on the street, not in private spaces.”
Víctor de Aldama, upon his release from prison
Asked by journalists if he affirmed that this meeting with Sánchez was not fortuitous, he replied: “Of course not.”
Furthermore, he assured that if the president wanted proof of the accusations he made this morning before Judge Moreno, “Don’t worry, you’ll have proof of everything that has been said.
Released with precautionary measures
A few hours after appearing in the Koldo case, Judge Pedraz responded to the businessman’s request, supported by the prosecution, and agreed, as a precautionary measure, that he appear every week in court , the establishment of an address to be located and the ban on going out. the country without judicial authorization.
The reason Pedraz adopted this decision, as he explains in his order, is that, according to article 505.4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the judge must accept the release of a person if neither party requests the release. prison, and the case the investigation he is investigating is secret and there are no accusations, apart from the prosecution, which supported De Aldama’s request.
Víctor de Aldama is the subject of an investigation before the National Court in two different cases and courts: an alleged hydrocarbon fraud which kept him in provisional prison until this Thursday and which is under investigation by Judge Pedraz, and the one known as the Koldo case, which revolves around alleged commissions in public mask contracts.
It was in this last case, investigated by Judge Ismael Moreno, that he declared and committed to collaborating in all open procedures.
The “express recognition” of the facts of this appearance and the “confession of crimes”, some new, is what exclusively led the prosecutor to support the request for freedom in the other case which kept him in prison, according to Anti-Corruption. .
The prosecution considers that his confession distorts the risk of destruction of evidence and mitigates the risks of escape, which were decisive in incarcerating him for this second reason.
At the end of his intervention in the Koldo affair, in which, in addition to talking about commissions, he implicated the head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, in the frustrated visit to Spain of the Venezuelan vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, In 2020, the defense of this businessman requested his release from Judge Pedraz, according to sources.
Sánchez: “It’s categorically false”
A few hours after De Aldama’s judicial declaration, the President of the Government assured that what the businessman said about him, his government and the PSOE was “categorically false”.
“Regarding the appearance of this character, I want to say that my government is a clean government,” he stressed, before emphasizing that this is the statement of a “suspected criminal” who is in preventive detention and who deserves the credit he gets. , “none “.
According to him, if anything has been demonstrated in the commissioner’s statement, it is that his defense strategy is lies: “He is surely doing it to divert attention, sow doubt and cover up what appears to be certain criminal activities from this commissioner. character.” “.
