The businessman Victor de Aldamaconsidered as the commission agent of Koldo affairhe declared this Thursday at the National Court, at his own request.
EL ESPAÑOL had access to the two hours of video of his judicial statement. The footage shows Aldama stating, at the start of his appearance, that his first meeting with Pedro Sanchezduring a PSOE event in Madrid in 2019, was carried out at the suggestion of the President of the Government. They both saw each other at an official PSOE event and took a photo together.
“The president literally says to me, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing,'” Aldama said when asked by his lawyer. His defender, José Antonio Choclán, asked him if the photo was “surreptitious” or “random”.
The video of Aldama’s confession before the judge: “Sánchez tells me, verbatim, thank you for what you do”
The businessman categorically denied this information and insisted on Pedro Sánchez’s interest in greeting him. “I know what you are doing and I thank you,” the president of the government told him..
Guided by his lawyer, Aldama began his voluntary declaration before Judge Ismael Moreno by expressing his intention to “collaborate” with justice. And recounting, a few moments later, that his relationship with the former minister Jose Luis Abalos comes through his brother, Rubén de Aldama, who worked as an escort for the former minister.
According to his story, the politician’s most trusted advisor, Koldo Garciawho gives his name to this legal case, would have informed him that the ministry “had become too big for them” and would have asked him if he could give them a hand. “During these first two months everything was with Koldo”said the businessman. “[Fueron] three or four weeks talking very intensely, almost daily with Koldo”, he detailed the origin of this relationship.
Contact with Abalos
His first contact with the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, took place “more or less” in August 2018. “I learned that there was a very important contract in Mexico, the Mayan Green Line, with interested Spanish companies,” he explained before the National Court. And since Koldo knew his contacts in Mexico, well was added to Oaxaca, I would have “asked for help”.
Aldama, according to his account, asked him to speak with the ambassador and Koldo told him that the diplomat was not going to help them. “That he wasn’t one of us”the businessman told the judge. “The Foreign Affairs Ambassador is removed and I am the one responsible,” said the businessman.
In his voluntary declaration, he also mentioned the trip that Ábalos made to Mexico in 2019. “It was official, but I organized it; the official channel is deleted (…) And it was a success,” he assured.
The day before the trip, on February 3, he said they forced him to go to a PSOE event because the president of the government wanted to meet and talk to him. According to his account, it was Koldo and Ábalos who told him this.
“The photo was not taken surreptitiously. It is not a coincidence. Sánchez told me: “I know what you do and I appreciate it. They informed me“, said Aldama about the image he took with the President of the Government during the demonstration of the Socialist Party, organized in a theater in La Latina (Madrid). According to his version, once the photo was taken, he said goodbye to the President of the Government, who spoke briefly with Koldo García, after taking the photo, Aldama allegedly told Sánchez: “You don’t need to thank me.”
Get out of prison
Aldama, currently in prison for a legal matter other than Koldo affairasked Judge Moreno to testify voluntarily. He did this through his lawyer. And the magistrate summoned him for this Thursday. He set up a room to which only his lawyer, the anti-corruption prosecutor, had access. Luis Pastor Mota and the instructor himself.
The commissioner was transferred from the penitentiary center to the National Court, where he arrived a few minutes after nine in the morning.
His intention is none other than, thanks to his declaration, to be able to leave the prison of Soto del Real, where another judge of the National Court sent him, Santiago Pedrazfor the call fuel plota network of oil companies which allegedly defrauded 182 million euros in VAT.
The call Koldo affair It takes its name from Koldo García, Ábalos’ main advisor and confidant when the politician was Minister of Transport. It is this department which paid, for the supply of millions of sanitary masks, more than 32 million euros to the company Soluciones de Gestión SL, considered the epicenter of the surveyed area.
In fact, as reported this Thursday, the businessman offered Ábalos his “contacts in China” to bring sanitary items to Spain. “I can move it,” he is said to have said, already in 2020, to the minister at the time, when Transport had been designated to contract anti-Covid equipment.
Koldo García, like Aldama, is also under investigation for this reason. For its part, the Supreme Court recently agreed to open criminal proceedings against the former minister, who is listed before the High Court as he continues to be an MP. And only the Second Chamber could therefore investigate him and summon him to testify.
News in update
We are working to expand this information. Soon, the EL ESPAÑOL editorial team will offer you an update of all the data on this news.
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