Former PSOE Organizing Secretary Santos Cerdán denied before the Senate commission of inquiry into the Koldo case that he was a partner of Servinabar, the company having considered the link to collect bribes in the case currently being investigated by the Supreme Court. “There is no proof of anything. Is it an original document? It is not an original document. It has no veracity. It will have to be proven that it is true,” he said when UPN senator María Caballero showed him the private purchase and sale contract that makes him owner of 45% of the construction company.
In his first intervention, Santos Cerdán affirmed that he would not respond to the “concrete facts” regarding the case opened against him, although he referred to this construction company and questioned the audios that incriminate him. “It is scientific proof (that they are manipulated)”, he declared in reference to the expert report commissioned by his defense which ensures that the audios seized from former advisor Koldo García were “reconstructed” and “manipulated”. “I will defend myself because I am innocent, I am not corrupt and sooner or later they will be able to prove it,” he said.
In addition to denying the veracity of the audios and his participation in Servinabar, he assured that he had not intervened in any sentence of the Spanish or Navarrese government. “It has been clean and transparent,” he said of the award of the Belate tunnel works, won by Servinabar. Cerdán made these types of statements, although he initially assured that he would exercise his right not to testify due to the legal process in which he is immersed.
Santos Cerdán presented himself to the Senate accompanied only by his lawyer. “Better alone than in bad company,” he responded to Senator Caballero, who, twice during his speech, reminded the former socialist leader that when he presented himself to the Senate commission of inquiry into corruption, he did so accompanied by many more people. “I don’t need anyone’s support,” he responded when asked if he feels abandoned by his party: “I have a lot of people behind me who support me and believe me.”
At that time, in April 2024, Cerdán was the all-powerful Secretary of the Organization and Pedro Sánchez’s right-hand man, and he entered the Senate supported by many socialist leaders. Fourteen months later, after reiterating that the news of his participation in the corruption plot was a legal offense, the UCO attributed him to the leader of the plot and he found himself in preventive detention for six months.
The former socialist leader was summoned almost a month after his release from prison, where he had remained for five months following the publication of a report by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard that placed him as the epicenter of an alleged corruption plot aimed at collecting bribes in exchange for public works awards. The Supreme Court is investigating him for alleged crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, influence peddling and corruption.
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