The judge investigating the appeal Koldo affairIsmael Moreno, ruled out taking action against the former CEO of Globalia, Javier Hidalgofor an alleged offense of perjury.
The magistrate thus responds to the request for one of the popular accusations of the case, Liberum. Moreno excludes that, during his interrogation, the businessman “lied, unless proven otherwise”, when asked about Victor del Aldamathe considered organizer/intermediary of the alleged corruption plot under investigation.
Hidalgo said he did not remember or know if he had participated in the rescue of Air Europa, belonging to the holding Globalia. Now, as the audios between the two published by EL ESPAÑOL reveal, On August 31, 2020, Aldama told the businessman how he had threatened Koldo García so that the government of Pedro Sánchez accelerated the rescue of Air Europa, which would eventually receive 475 million public euros to mitigate the effects of Covid-19.
Koldo Garciawho gives his name to this cause, was the advisor to the Minister of Transport at the time, José Luis Ábalos, who in turn was organizational secretary of the PSOE. Inside Koldo affairThe National Court is investigating an alleged corruption plot, of which Ábalos and the Aldama councilor are said to be the ringleaders, dedicated to the collection of illegal commissions at the start of the pandemic.
They have done this, among other things, thanks to the contracts awarded by the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of the Interior and the Governments of the Canary and Balearic Islands, to the company SL Management Solutionswho was responsible for providing masks. The masks also traveled to Madrid from China on Air Europa planes, which ended up being rescued and of which Aldama was the advisor.
In a resolution dated this Friday, to which EL ESPAÑOL had access, the judge rules out that Hidalgo lied.
“What is different is that he was asked questions in a generic way about his relationship with Mr. Ábalos, with Mr. García Izaguirre, with Mr. Aldama, or about the intervention of these people in the granting of approval of aid for the rescue of Air Europa, question not covered by this procedure», declares the magistrate. Then, he therefore excludes inferring testimony against Hidalgo.
Indeed, the summoning of this businessman as a witness was carried out on the order of the Criminal Chamber of the National Court, a body hierarchically superior to the instructor, which forced him to reverse his decision not to question.
As Moreno now recalls, the Court delimited “the subject of Mr. Hidalgo’s testimony” to his “relationship or that of his company in the transport of the masks that Soluciones de Gestión SL (on which the plot pivots) was to supply to entities dependent on the Ministry of Transport.
In fact, when he testified on September 12, Ismael Moreno prevented the accusations from asking him questions about the wife of Pedro Sánchez, Begoña Gomezbecause that is not the subject of the matter. Gómez and Hidalgo had participated in tourist events, among other ties that unite them.
Ismael Moreno finally concludes that “in this case, the relationships that the witness could maintain with one of the people investigated are of little interest, since the procedure is the process of awarding the supply of masks.”