The unconditional preventive detention of businessman Víctor de Aldama is “arbitrary” because “we do not explain” how his freedom can negatively influence an investigation of a purely patrimonial nature when the investigating judge himself, Santiago Pedraz, declares in the prison order that the crimes charged – against the Public Treasury and against money laundering – are already determined “in their essential aspects” .
This was stated by Aldama’s defender, José Antonio Choclán, in the appeal he filed against Pedraz’s decision to imprison the businessman, who is in the Soto del Penitentiary Center. Real (Madrid) since last Thursday.
The defense not only denies the existence of evidence of criminal behavior by Aldama in relation to the so-called “oil conspiracy” (a conglomerate of hydrocarbon companies that allegedly defrauded the Treasury of more than 182 million euros of VAT), but emphasizes that the businessman “showed his collaboration” with the investigation.
During the searches of his home and offices, Aldama provided UCO agents of the Civil Guard with both the passwords for his email and the access codes to computers and secure opening number.
The appeal emphasizes that the indications expressed in the imprisonment order “cannot be considered rational”. The claim that Aldama co-directed the parent company Still Growing SL with Claudio Rivas is not substantiated “and no connection between Aldama is expressed with regard to the supplier companies, their directors, and even less with regard to compliance with their tax obligations.
He also disputes the instructor’s assertion that the purpose of Aldama Prison is “above all” to recover as much of what was defrauded as possible, as there is “speculation” that “there could be have » companies with overseas bank accounts that have not yet been opened. identified.
The prison thus becomes, affirms the defender, a “pressure instrument obtain the collaboration of the persons investigated or facilitate an investigation to the detriment of the freedom of the persons investigated, although the State has all the official apparatus, fiscal and police assistance, national and international, to
“ensure the success of the investigation, which cannot be to the detriment of the freedom of the investigator.”
Choclán points out that during his appearance last Thursday he provided documents proving that Aldama is on provisional release in the Koldo case in which increasingly serious crimes are being investigated: not only membership in a criminal organization, money laundering or tax crimes, but, in addition, corruption and influence peddling .
The prosecutor, who is the same one in charge of the “oil plot”, did not ask for prison for Aldama in the “Koldo case”. In this last procedure, the businessman only has precautionary measures prohibiting him from leaving the national territory, the withdrawal of his passport and the obligation to appear twice weekly before the court.
On September 23, the instructor of the “Koldo affair”, Ismael Moreno, authorized a trip abroad for Aldama from which he returned on October 7, when he was arrested on Pedraz’s orders. The prosecutor did not object to the businessman leaving Spain. “it is difficult to believe that a risk of flight can reasonably be assessed in these circumstances,” he criticizes.
“The representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office who requested prison in this case knew, like the same prosecutor acting in the Koldo case, that Aldama had been authorized to leave Spanish territory in the days preceding his arrest. No risk to the effectiveness of the research was then appreciated.“, he emphasizes.
“The turn given [por el fiscal] In your position, this does not seem understandablenow affirming that the freedom of those investigated can affect the effectiveness of this investigation. This demonstrates that prison cannot meet any constitutionally legitimate objective, and that the aim of “recovering what has been defrauded”, the real reason for the contested order, cannot legitimize the adoption of the precautionary measure of imprisonment, which is expressed as a pure measure. security, in the best case, or as a corrective or anticipated sanction in order to obtain declarations or evidence in the manner censored by the doctrine of the Constitutional Court”, affirms the appeal.
An “exemplary sanction”
He emphasizes that the guarantee model of the modern criminal process is “incompatible” with the idea of subjecting the accused “to direct or indirect pressure to encourage him to repent or collaborate with the prosecution”.
“Only the freedom of the accused guarantees the ability to defend himself. Thus, pre-trial detention, often applied in a pathological manner, is illegitimate when, as here, individual freedom is used to achieve state objectives such as admitting to having discovered possible hidden accounts or assets. There is no risk of flight, nor risk of recidivism, and the risk of hiding evidence is a risk assessed in a vague and abstract manner, which does not legitimize confinement,” he adds.
According to him, the unconditional imprisonment of Aldama has no other purpose than to subject him to “immediate punishment” exemplary punishment“, which is “arbitrary and illegitimate with regard to the postulates of constitutional doctrine”.
