A “solid, consistent and conclusive table of evidence” leads the Supreme Court “necessarily” to consider the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, responsible for the leak and the press release in which the confidential email was distributed in which … The defense of Alberto González Amador, partner of President Ayuso, admitted before the prosecutor that he had committed two crimes in order to avoid trial.
Nineteen days after notifying the judgment, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court yesterday made public the sentence which sentences García Ortiz to a two-year ban and a fine, devastating resolution in his argument which not only highlights the illicit actions of Álvaro García Ortiz and his defense strategy, but also complicates a possible appeal to the Constitutional Court and, subsequently, in his case before Europe. The resolution represents a strengthening of Judge Hurtado’s instruction and the UCO investigation, which he supports from start to finish, without it being admitted. none of the previous questions that García Ortiz’s defense revealed during the first session of the trial, on November 3.
In its 233 pages (53 of which consist of the dissenting vote of progressive magistrates Susana Polo and Ana Ferrer), the magistrates who tried the current Attorney General believe that the disclosure of the email materialized both by the leak of the email to the Ser channel on March 13, 2024 and by the publication of the information note the next day. Both constitute, according to the court, a “unity of action”, so much so that the second “officialized” the first.
The Supreme Court emphasizes that the State Attorney General cannot respond to false news by committing an offense of disclosing confidential data which could infringe the rights of the defense and the presumption of innocence, rights that the prosecution “must guarantee”. In this sense, García Ortiz was charged, he said, with a reinforced duty of confidentiality and confidentiality which “broken without justification.”
García Ortiz had “a reinforced duty of confidentiality and confidentiality which he broke without justification”
For the Chamber, the defense is not right when it considers that there is no secret from the moment that this information is already the subject of public processing. “The duty of confidentiality of the Attorney General of the State – in general, of any official of the Public Prosecutor’s Office – does not disappear” due to this circumstance or the fact that the media would have had this email of February 2, 2024 (the one with the self-incrimination), affirm the magistrates.
One of the main pieces of evidence against García Ortiz was the statement of the Attorney General of Madrid, Almudena Lastra, whose testimony succeeded in proving the efforts made by the accused to obtain that email of February 2 that began the disclosure of the confidential data and which resulted in the publication of the informative note. For the Court, his testimony It is not that of a “reluctant or resentful” person, because of their situation or the treatment they suffered within the tax directorate”, as the Public Prosecutor’s Office wanted to demonstrate during the trial. On the contrary, what this shows is that he did not agree with the way in which the Attorney General wanted to deny the news that the newspaper “El Mundo” published in the afternoon of March 13 and which maintained that it was the Public Prosecutor’s Office who had offered a deal to González Amador when it was the opposite, says the court, was concerned about the revelation of information which “seriously undermined the privacy of third parties and the confidentiality of conversations between the lawyer and the prosecutor to reach a possible agreement”. “He has been very clear about this and he has already expressed to the Madrid prosecutor his discomfort at the idea of providing him with data that he was going to reveal, warning him to be careful.”
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to the sentence of García Ortiz, 53 of which are the dissenting vote of judges Ferrer and Polo
The journalists themselves who testified at the trial also seemed to know, the court said, the classified data status of this email that they were supposed to have in their possession, as did the socialist spokesperson at the time in the Madrid Assembly, Juan Lobato, when it was sent to him by Óscar López’s number two in the presidency of the government cabinet, Pilar Sánchez Acera “and he did not want to use it without verifying its origin and its prior publication”.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
In this context, for the Court, Lastra’s anger on the morning of March 14, “reprimanding his highest boss for disclosing the emails”, is also logical, to which he limited himself to responding: “It doesn’t matter now.”
The Chamber also assessed the manner and timing in which García Ortiz requested the emails exchanged between the lawyer of Ayuso’s partner (Carlos Neira) and the prosecutor Julián Salto and how he was directly involved in their compilation, addressing “insistently” to the head of the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, Pilar Rodríguez. “The mission was so urgent that they did not hesitate to force Prosecutor Salto to leave the football game he was attending at the time, to immediately proceed with the transmission of the emails … because the state attorney general could not wait.”
“The mission was so urgent that they did not hesitate to force Prosecutor Salto to leave the football match,” notes the court.
Concerning the email of February 2, in which it was recognized that “two tax offenses were certainly committed”, the judgment indicates that the accused received it at 9:59 p.m. and the Ser network journalist offered a preview at 11:25 p.m. to publish later, at 11:51 p.m., the textual paragraph also announcing that the prosecution was preparing a press release “for the next few hours”, which was true.
“A very striking coincidence”
Another “true and particularly striking fact” for the judges is the deletion of WhatsApp messages. “This was done, coincidentally, on October 16, 2024, just one day after this Court issued an order accepting the initiation of proceedings, eliminating documents that could have clarified the route of mail and communications before and after its publication,” the judgment adds. It was, he said, echoing the report of the UCO expert, “full erase-double erase”. “That such a singular day was chosen, the one following the launch of the process, to entertain themselves in what they want to present as a periodic routine, is a very striking coincidence.”
The Court indicates that it cannot accept as an explanatory argument for the destruction of the messages sent and received by García Ortiz that this deletion was due to a legal requirement and here evokes the number two of Óscar López, then in Moncloa. “If, moreover, this destruction is not an isolated act, but coincides chronologically in time with the erasure carried out on its terminals by other public agents – such as Pilar Sánchez Acera -, the idea that everything is due to the simultaneous and legal compliance with the mandate contained in Instruction 2/2019 lacks plausibility.”
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