Former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos denied that there was illegal financing within the PSOE when he was Secretary of the Organization or who has evidence of the “criminal acts and illicit activities” of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
“There was no illegal financing of the PSOEat least when I was Secretary of the Organization,” Ábalos said in one of the messages he exchanged from prison with the program ‘Mañaneros 360’, on Spanish television.
Set to complete a month in pre-trial detention on December 27, the former minister said he was “stronger than ever” and He maintains “good” relations with his former advisor Koldo Garcíawith whom he shares a cell and has had to learn to live in such a small space.
He says the idea of running away is ‘completely absurd’
He refused to consider running away, which he considers “completely absurd”because he has “all possible roots” in Spain, and he recalled once again that there is no precedent for a deputy in prison.
Ábalos, who was suspended from his parliamentary rights and duties upon entering prison, associates his entry into prison with the intention of “eliminate a man and a politician” and he denies recognizing himself in the audios that his right-hand man recorded for four years (2019-2023) and which resulted in the accusation of his successor in the party, Santos Cerdán, for alleged manipulation of public works.
The former minister criticized an investigation that was “imperfect and contaminated from the start” and denied some of the Civil Guard’s latest findings in another case, the case of hydrocarbonswhere he pointed out that the plot included one million euros to buy his “will” with alleged commissions that also reached his advisor and the alleged commission agent Víctor de Aldama.
Throughout his messages he considered that not only would he be remembered at the end of the investigations against him, one of them already awaiting a trial date for allegedly favoring, alongside Koldo García, a company captured by Aldama in selling medical supplies during a pandemic in exchange for commissions.
He asks that a popular jury judge him
In addition to this, Ábalos asked the Supreme Court this Tuesday that a popular jury, composed of citizensjudge him for alleged irregularities in mask procurement during the pandemic.
In a letter, the deputy’s defense requests the dismissal of his trial before a court of first instance and establishes as a precedent the case of the former president of the Valencian Community Francisco Camps. The defense points out that, according to the organic law of the jury court, three of the crimes of which Ábalos is accused (corruption, influence peddling and embezzlement) are typical of the popular jury trial. And there are only two crimes in the indictment, as he points out, that “are not known to the jurynamely, criminal organization and use of privileged information.”
“The majority of the accusations therefore fall within the jurisdiction of the popular jury,” states the letter from the former minister, which also explains that “the main crimes are those of the competition with jurywho lead others, never the other way around.
That said, the defense assures that the former minister is brought before the Supreme Court and, “according to the text of the law, the prosecution corresponds to the Supreme Court”, but through a popular jury”. The document also mentions that the popular jury “will be constituted within the framework of the Provincial Court or, where appropriate, the corresponding courts due to the quality of the accused.”
“The Supreme Court don’t lose your competition by the fact that the trial takes place before a jury; simply, the Chamber is constituted in a special way (a president and nine jurors)”, he affirms. In this sense, Ábalos cites as a precedent the former Valencian president Camps, emphasizing that the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice “declared itself competent to know the facts consisting of the alleged acceptance of gifts in the form of clothing.” before the popular jury, “within the framework of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community”, recalling that the case “ended by acquittal”.
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