Esperanza Aguirre, president of the Community of Madrid for the PP between 2003 and 2012, learned yesterday that Alfredo Prada, one of her closest collaborators during her first two terms, was sentenced to seven years in prison. A sentence that comes for the embezzlement of 40 million euros in one of her flagship projects in her first years as president: the failed City of Justice. A day after hearing the sentence, the former president and now talk show host spoke about the case on “Everything is a Lie”, Risto Mejide’s show, to repeat what she had already said as a witness in the National Court: that everyone was asking for the City of Justice and that she did not know that the millions of euros were intended for promotional events instead of securing the project.
“This City of Justice is not that of Esperanza Aguirre,” he said, almost recounting his statement as a witness in the trial held a few months ago. He assured that the Minister of Justice at the time “who was from the PP” demanded centralized judicial facilities for Madrid “like those that Barcelona and Valencia have…”. The government of the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, he added, also demanded that he launch this project. “Everyone wanted the City of Justice, I did not invent the City of Justice.”
She also defended herself, as she had already said at the trial, explaining that in the photo of the first stone of the project two decades ago, there was not only her, but also the highest judicial authorities of the country. A way of disengaging from the project that contrasts with what the National Court itself says in its ruling, the judges even accusing their former advisor Prada but without failing to emphasize that he acted “certainly with the enthusiasm shared by the Governing Council of the Community with its President at the forefront.
This Tuesday, on Mejide’s show, as during the trial to dissociate himself from any irregularity, Aguirre repeated that in 2008 he expelled Alfredo Prada from his government because he decided to support Mariano Rajoy’s candidacy at the Valencia congress. And he defended, after repeating several times that “unlike the PSOE, I respect the judicial decisions”, that no one “put money in his pockets”.
Two decades later, Aguirre has no problem acknowledging that, according to Justice, his administration wasted millions of euros promoting a project that, in the meantime, was not considered viable. “Too much money, for this sentence, was spent on exhibitions, on advertising, on famous architects … and I respect that,” he said. Famous architects like Norman Foster, who, according to the judgment, cost more than 10 million euros and, according to what Prada said during the trial, was a direct order from Aguirre herself.
“But how am I going to realize it,” Aguirre said when the host repeatedly asked him if he knew that one of the major projects of his first term was a drain on public money. “What am I going to suspect?” he wondered.
