Section 23 of the Provincial Court of Madrid plans to resolve this Monday the appeals filed by the prosecutor and the defense by Begoña Gómez on the investigation carried out by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado against the wife of the President of the Government, for alleged crimes of influence peddling and corruption in business.
The Court quickly resolved —in a week— the error of the Court Registry, which did not process the appeal that the defense filed on July 8.
When the magistrates went to examine the case on September 30, they found that this appeal had not reached the Section and that it was not included in the full testimony of the file which they had requested on September 12 , and therefore requested explanations from the lawyer. Administration of Justice of the Peinado Court. The correct processing of appeals depends on the judicial office in charge of the LAJ and not on the judge.
The callers disagree on their claims, but they agree on one point underlying complaint: Peinado has not specified with the necessary precision what he is investigating. This is relevant because this indetermination violates, the appeals assert, the right of defense.
The prosecutor requests that the subject of the investigation be clarified, while the defender, Antonio Camachodemands that the trial be archived because, he claims, in five months of proceedings, no evidence of any crime has emerged.
Auditory sources They exclude that article 23 is a “slam dunk” to the investigation into the commercial activities of Begoña Gómez.
According to the same sources, magistrates assess the need for a precise determination of the subject of the procedure, to guarantee the right of defense and not compromise the validity of the investigation.
“All behaviors”
The two appeals are directed against the resolution issued by the investigating judge on July 2 in response to a request from the defender to specify the elements on which the investigation relates within the framework of the procedure opened at the end of last April following a complaint from the Manos Limpies union.
The judge’s response was as follows: “all acts, conduct and behavior are subject to investigation which were carried out by the person investigated since her husband is the president of the Spanish government and which are contained in the initial complaint”.
Part of the Clean Hands complaint was already rejected as a subject of investigation by the Court on May 29, in response to an initial appeal from the prosecutor. This part contained false news about the receipt of a grant by the wife of the president of the government, a grant that a Cantabrian businesswoman also named Begoña Gómez had actually received.
Another part of the complaint referred to two letters of recommendation signed by the wife of Pedro Sánchez in support of projects submitted to two Red.es competitions by a company linked to the businessman Carlos Barrabés, who was professor of the master’s degree that Pedro Sánchez’s wife co-led competitive social transformation at the Complutense University of Madrid.
In this part, Article 23 actually saw a “sufficient evidentiary basis” to investigate Gomez. But Judge Peinado recused himself on June 7 in favor of the European Prosecutor’s Office regarding the investigation into these contracts, because they were financed by European funds.
The third part of the complaint concerned rescue of the airline Air Europa after the Covid-19 pandemic. The company is owned by Globalia and Manos Cleans’ complaint highlighted the links between Begoña Gómez and Javier Hidalgo, former CEO of the business group.
The defense argues that the Court already excluded the rescue of Air Europa from the procedure in May because, certainly, the magistrates affirmed that Gómez’s relationship with this government decision was a “simple guess“.
However, the magistrates’ resolution added a mention to “striking temporal and personal coincidences” [entre Gómez e Hidalgo] which, when the time comes, will be able to provide new data“, which would not corroborate this exclusion. And this is how Peinado understood it, who instructed the General Intervention of the State to provide a report on this rescue file.
Extension of investigations
Beyond the initial complaint, the monitor conducts investigations into various issues: among six other contracts awarded to Barrabés (“in which there is no element that links Begoña Gómez to them”, argues the defense) to the activity of the businesswoman at the IE Africa Center, to her hiring by the UCM or to the operation of the master’s degree and of the extraordinary chair that Gómez He co-directed at this university.
Recently, in addition, the Third Section of the Madrid Court judged correct the sending to Peinado of a complaint filed in another court regarding the alleged appropriation by Gómez of a software from Complutense University.
In the opinion of the defender, all this demonstrates that the instructor “intends to extend the investigation beyond what the Provincial Court decided”, by opening “a prospective investigation” and “investigate life and work” of the person investigated.
The action of article 23 does not, however, support the thesis of a closure of the investigation at this emerging moment of the investigations.
Last May, the magistrates categorically rejected the prosecutor’s request to archive the debates and ruled inadmissible his “attempt to prevent any investigation” in the “delicate area” of influence peddling crimes.
They said failure to investigate existing evidence “could lead to creating the flaws of impunity in any criminal activity where the delineation of relevant criminal behavior is not always easy to establish and where obtaining sources of evidence is complex.
The prosecutor does not now demand that the investigation be archived, but complains that its subject “becomes generic and lacking specificity“, Thus “This may seem like a general cause.”.
“There is no judicial decision which guides or specifies the procedure,” indicates the appeal from the public prosecutor.
According to him, “there is an attempt to expand teaching to very broad moments and scenarios, the relationship of which to the pursued goal we do not fully understand.”
This is why it asks article 23 of the Provincial Court of Madrid to “delimit the cause”; exclude “the facts relating to Globalia”, in which there is no evidence of criminality, and “determine” which facts the judge can continue to investigate and which cannot.
The sources consulted consider that, although it is an extra-procedural factor, the attacks directed against the instructor —especially those who come from the PSOE and the members of the government themselves— They generate a feeling of solidarity with him and “eliminate the possibility of a setback”, they say.
They emphasize, in this regard, that in large sectors of the Provincial Court, the government’s reaction to the investigation into the president’s wife is considered “disproportionate”, to the point that the latter filed a complaint against Peinado.
