He Supreme Court This Wednesday, he rejected the appeals presented by the former Minister of Transport Jose Luis Abalos and his former advisor Koldo Garcia against the order issued by the investigating judge Leopoldo Puente, who agreed to bring them to justice for the pandemic mask plot, the outings of their close friends in public companies, the rental operation of a chalet in La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz) or the stay of the former minister in a vacation chalet in Marbella (Málaga), among other facts. Ábalos and Koldo are currently in preventive detention at the Soto del Real penitentiary center (Madrid).
The resolution, which is firm, ratifies Judge Puente’s order that there are sufficient indications of criminal liability to continue proceedings under the abbreviated procedure for several corruption offenses – integration into a criminal organization, bribery, use of privileged information, influence peddling and embezzlement of public funds.
For its part, this resolution will also have consequences for Ábalos as a parliamentarian in application of article 21 of the Congress Regulationswhich reads as follows: “Deputies will be suspended from their parliamentary rights and duties when, once the authorization requested has been granted by the House and the indictment order has been signed, they are in a situation of preventive detention and for the duration.
The order definitively implies the loss of deputy rights, even if the former PSOE organizational secretary can keep his file as such. This means that he cannot collect any money from the Congressional budget or participate in its activities. In short, the possibility of being able to vote electronically is completely closed. This is a path which, according to the interpretation of certain jurists, could have been considered taking into account the latest reform of the Regulations of the Lower House, including telematic voting for exceptional reasons of force majeure.
Ábalos, although part of the Mixed Group, continued to vote according to the slogan of the socialists, who now have less support. They assume that to advance any initiative they inevitably need the explicit support of the seven deputies of the Junts.
In fact, the accused posted a comment this Wednesday on the social network
The strength of the evidence
For its part, the TS Appeals Chamber rejects all the reasons alleged by the two appellants and recalls that the abbreviated procedure order must include a factual judgment at the circumstantial level to verify that there are sufficient elements to consider the perpetration of the declared events as “sufficiently justified”.
Regarding the evaluations on the greater or lesser sufficiency of certain elements of evidence alleged by Ábalos and Koldo, the order understands that these are all defensive arguments “which fail to dispel the solidity of the evidence indicated by the investigator and which anticipate the debates of the plenary session. Neither the investigator nor this Appeals Chamber are called upon to initiate proceedings prematurely;
For the court, “the procedures proposed, in an a priori trial, whatever their result, do not seem likely to distort the solid arsenal of evidence built up by the investigator and which has already given rise, as we know (…), to indictments and provisional detentions. Perhaps during the oral trial they can introduce nuances, or even distort certain elements of evidence. in the most optimistic forecast for the appellant, that this procedure will dismantle the level not as demanding as that required for a conviction, an indicative level which justifies an order for prosecution, an indispensable element of the opening of the oral trial.
The trial: early 2026
As EL MUNDO reports, it is predictable that Ábalos will sit in the dock of the High Court in the first months of 2026. Among other reasons, because the Koldo affair This is the only case with a detainee who is currently before the Criminal Chamber and this means that he has priority over the rest of the ongoing procedures.
The anti-corruption prosecution requested 24 years in prison against the former Minister of Transport in this separate room. The minimum prison sentence the former socialist leader faces for the five crimes attributed to him is 12 and a half years in prison.
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