“Neither I nor those around me filter emails. This is the reason why I did not resign. The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, made these remarks this Wednesday at the last minute. In an interview with Night in 24 hours (RTVE 24 Hours channel) García Ortiz spoke his first words in public after learning this Wednesday morning that the Supreme Court was opening criminal proceedings against him due to the complaint filed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner for revealing secrets. This is the first criminal case opened by the Supreme Court against a sitting attorney general.
“I am not the subject of any investigation and I am not accused,” the prosecutor wanted to clarify at the start of the interview with Xabier Fortes, to whom he admitted that the decision of the Supreme Court caused him “much concern” and made it “reflect.” “I personally take responsibility for all the decisions I make,” he insisted. “I suppose I made or we made a statement for which I am solely responsible to deny a hoax,” he remarked. In addition, García Ortiz assured that “he would make this statement again.”
García Ortiz refers to the statement last March by which the Madrid Public Prosecutor’s Office tried to deny various false information about the case of double tax fraud of Díaz Ayuso’s partner and for which the Supreme Court is currently investigating him for allegedly revealing secrets . Concretely, the press release denies the messages sent by Díaz Ayuso’s entourage to various media, ensuring that it was the prosecution which proposed an agreement in accordance with Alberto González Amador when in reality it was he who raised it .
Regarding his decision not to resign despite the Supreme Court’s case, García Ortiz assured that it was “the most important reflection” that he had to make this Wednesday “thinking of his colleagues” and that he finally decided to stay “with absolute conviction, thinking that it is the best in the short and long term for the Prosecutor’s Office.”
Asked whether he feels the victim of a sort of political “hunting”, García Ortiz acknowledged that even if “every attorney general of the state is implicated for having been appointed by a government” also to other occasions, in his case “is not “They have respected neither the 50, nor the 100, nor the 500 days”. “The responsibility of the position must support these persecutions”, he concluded .
In its order this Wednesday, the Supreme Court explained that the statement issued by the prosecution on the case of Alberto González Amador contained information already revealed by the media, but focuses on the leak of emails in which his lawyer acknowledged the two felonies. tax crimes and offered to make a deal. The investigation will therefore focus on whether it was the Attorney General who previously leaked these emails to the media.
But García Ortiz denied the middle finger. As he insisted, he did not disclose any emails. “As you understand, it is not the business of the state attorney general to release emails at night,” he told the interviewer. He also stressed that he “wasn’t aware” of these emails “until a media outlet reported on them.”
The case currently before the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court began when Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and accused of confessing to double tax fraud, accused the prosecutor’s office for disclosing confidential data about his case in a public statement.
In fact, in this statement, the Madrid Public Prosecutor’s Office explained how the contacts took place between the businessman’s lawyer and the prosecutor who was investigating him to reach a possible agreement in a future trial. In the preceding hours, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez and various media had reported that it was the Public Ministry who proposed the pact. But it was González Amador’s own defense that wrote to the public prosecutor’s office to recognize his tax crimes and propose a settlement.
