Former director of Adolfo Suárez-Madrid airport Barajas José Antonio Álvarez Fernández assured this Monday from the Senate that he was unaware of the arrival of the Vice President of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez at this terminal in January 2020, while repeatedly affirming that the responsibility for border control and customs is of the Ministry of the Interior.
In response to various questions from Vox and PP during the commission of inquiry into all the ramifications of the “Koldo case”who was director of Madrid-Barajas airport when the Venezuelan vice president arrived, insisted that his position had no jurisdiction over many aspects related to this “Delcy case”.
As stated, AENA, as manager of the airport, does not have information on the identity of people arriving at the airport and was therefore not aware of the identity of people arriving at the airport . Delcy Rodriguez lands in January 2020, while denying any instructions from any senior official on this issue.
It is for this reason that he has repeatedly said that responsibility for border and customs control lies with the Interior Ministry, while insisting that he is not aware of the alleged movements of the former minister José Luis Ábaloshis former advisor Koldo García Izaguirre and the alleged plotter Víctor de Aldama through the restricted areas of the airport.
Custody of records
In any case, the former director of the Airport defended that the only “extraordinary” action linked to this affair “Delcy Affair” was the preservation and custody of the images and their subsequent delivery to the court.
Specifically, the recordings that were turned over to the court are from all cameras located inside the general aviation terminal and outside the aeronautical terminal the company and the apron where the plane was parked.
However, the former director of Madrid-Barajas airport said he had not retained no copy on these recordings, which he kept from February 2020 to June 2022 because, as he said, these images are destroyed after 30 days.
In this regard, he denied having received any call or pressure to delete or boycott these recordings concerning the arrival of Delcy Rodríguez at the airport, even though he stated that José Luis Ábalos had never called or met him and that he did not know Koldo García Izaguirre either.
However, he assured that Delcy Rodríguez did not use any of the meeting rooms. Barajas Authorities nor any of the “VIP rooms” managed directly by AENA. “Is the Barajas VIP zone on national territory?” asked the PP senator, to which the former airport director replied that this question should be entrusted to the National Police, because it is his responsibility.
