Vox has failed to open a second criminal procedure against Begoña Gómez, wife of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. Judge Coro Monreal, president of the Court of Instruction number 34 of Madrid, has The complaint in which Gómez was accused of the crime of influence peddling was not admitted to processing for its intervention in the contractualization and use of an IT platform to help small and medium-sized enterprises respect the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).
The rejection of the complaint without further formality is due to the “lack of criminal significance of the facts” reported, the judge states.
The complaint, filed in parallel with the proceedings that Judge Peinado is conducting against Gómez and in which her performance as co-director of an extraordinary chair and a master’s degree at the Complutense University of Madrid is also being examined, states that the UCM approved and processed a contract for the creation of a platform for the management and measurement of the SDG impact for small and medium-sized enterprises for an amount of 60,000 euros, plus 12,000 VAT.
Begoña Gomez signed the technical specifications document “although he does not have the necessary technical qualifications,” according to the complaint.
Vox added that, just a month after the contract was awarded, Gómez created his company, the commercial company Transforma TSC SL, in which he disseminates the tool for SMEs. Transformer TSC.
According to the complaint, the legality of the creation of the extraordinary chair co-directed by Gómez and its use “for personal and personal purposes” is doubtful, since “profits were made through the chair and with public funds from contacts, visibility and interventions of an institutional sphere such as the UCM to surreptitiously facilitate the commercial, secret and typical activity of the defendant’s company, which used her status as the wife of the president of the government for the achievement of these objectives.”
The reported facts “do not have the character of a crime”, responds the judge, who emphasizes that according to Vox’s own account “it is clear that It is based on mere suspicions and conjectures.but not on solid evidence of the commission of the crime of influence peddling.
On the one hand, “it is not clear” that the UCM’s software procurement file “was drawn up outside the rules governing public procurement”.
On the other hand, it was the deputy director of Complutense who decided to approve and process the file “in view of the contract report presented by the director of the School of Government on August 2, 2023, justifying the need for the contract.” and the agreement of the hiring table.
“There is no evidence that the accused exerted any influence neither on the official who issues the first resolution, nor on the members of the procurement table,” observes the judge.
“The moral pressure that the defendant should have exerted by taking advantage of her marital relationship [con el presidente del Gobierno] It should have been with the official who approved the hiring or with the members of the hiring table, he adds.
The judge points out that “it is stated in the complaint that the defendant draws up the technical specifications even though he does not have the necessary technical qualifications,” without specifying what technical qualification is required“.
It must be taken into account, he adds, that Gómez has been working for the Complutense in matters of social transformation since 2012 and that the master’s degree he is developing has already had 11 editions, so “some developed professional experience may be assumed at the UCM itself, even before her husband became president of the governmenta family link which, in itself, would not justify the existence of a prevalence”.
