Prosecutor Francisco Javier Montero put the question bluntly:
-Was this source the State Attorney General?
Miguel Angel Campos, a court journalist from Cadena Ser, answered, without further addition, to the seven members of the court trying the Chief Public Prosecutor, Álvaro García Ortiz, in the Supreme Court:
-no.
Campos was the first journalist to report, around midnight on March 13, the existence of an email from the lawyer of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner to the economic crimes prosecutor in Madrid in which he admitted that his client, Alberto González Amador, had committed two tax crimes. This leak is considered the cornerstone upon which the Supreme Court prosecuted the State Attorney General for the crime of disclosing secrets. But the journalist, as he did before the investigating judge in the case, confirmed on Tuesday in the oral hearing of the trial that a source had informed him of the existence of this call from Gonzalez Amador’s lawyer several hours before García Ortiz reached him. At the same session on Tuesday, another journalist, José Manuel Romero, deputy director of El Pais newspaper when the events occurred, also announced that he had previously known from sources other than the public prosecutor that the legal representation of Ayuso’s friend had offered an agreement to the Public Ministry, in advance admission of his tax fraud.
Campos relied on his constitutional right to keep sources confidential. He has strongly defended journalists who have this right. He declared it a guarantee that “society has the right to truthful information” and that the media are not limited to acting as “spokesmen for authority.”
In intense questioning conducted by Special Prosecution Attorney Gabriel Rodriguez Ramos, the witness gave a detailed explanation of his actions on March 13, 2024, the day in question, a “crazy day,” as he put it. after eldiario.es When the prosecutor’s complaint against Gonzalez Amador was published, the journalist reported that he began making multiple efforts to try to verify the news. At approximately three o’clock in the afternoon, one of his interlocutors summoned him to his office after announcing that he had relevant information. According to Campos, this source showed him the lawyer’s email in which he presented an agreement to the prosecutor’s office after learning the facts, and allowed him, without handing it over, to take notes. But when the SER journalist was already returning to the newsroom, he called him to tell him that he couldn’t use it because it contained personal data and he didn’t know how many people would have access to it.
The informant stated that he tried throughout the afternoon to verify the information from other sources. “I called judges, prosecutors, people from the Treasury and from the State Attorney’s Office,” he added, without getting the confirmation he was looking for. Just after 9:30 p.m. that day, while he was at a bar watching a soccer match, Campos said he received a phone call from a colleague telling him that the world He had just posted that it was the district attorney’s office that offered a plea deal to Gonzalez Amador. The journalist told his radio colleagues that this information was “false,” and began taking steps to confirm once again that the information he was not authorized to disclose.
Campos admits he called Garcia Ortiz at 9:38 p.m., but he did not answer or return the call. The phone company’s log shows that the call lasted four seconds, at which time the mailbox was disconnected, according to the witness. “Garcia Ortiz must have been a marvel to email me at that time,” Campos said sarcastically.
The informant reported that he continued to insist and was able to contact the initial source who showed him the email. This is what finally convinced him to allow him to reveal its content. It was 11:25 pm, when he entered Hora 25 to narrate it. Minutes later, at 11:51 p.m., he posted it on the Cadena Ser website.
After Campos, journalist José Manuel Romero, deputy director of elDiario.es, who was deputy director of El Pais newspaper, announced the time of the alleged leak. Romero confirmed that he learned, on the afternoon of March 12, 2024, from the tax sources of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, that the lawyer of Ayuso’s partner intended to reach an agreement with the Public Ministry that implied that his client would return what had been defrauded and confess to his crimes in exchange for a reduced sentence that would entail avoiding imprisonment. The journalist explained that El Pais did not publish this information at that time because it could not compare it to González Amador’s lawyer, Carlos Neira, who did not respond to the call, email and WhatsApp message sent to him by an editor from the Madrid section.
Romero relied on professional secrecy not to reveal the source who gave him that information, but he specified his location in the area of the Madrid Community Prosecutor’s Office. The editor explained that he contacted this source on March 12 to compare it with the message that the President of Madrid published on the social network.
The person he spoke with assured him that the Ministry’s published complaint was not due to “political persecution.” The evidence for this is that Lawyer Nera contacted the Public Ministry to reach an agreement regarding his client’s crimes and expressed his willingness to pay a fine to reduce the prison sentence that the Public Prosecution could request. This source also provided him with the name of lawyer Neera, which had not been published until then.
The journalist said that this information prompted him to ask the Madrid branch to try to contact the lawyer to ensure that he was negotiating an agreement. All this is recorded in letters exchanged between editors, which are incorporated into the case through a documentary document. In one of those letters, Ferrero wrote to Peinado: “Romero asks me to look up the phone number of Carlos Neira, who appears to be the lawyer of Ayuso’s partner. He apparently showed up this morning saying he would pay, that is, confess to the crime.” Romero explained that the editor-in-chief tried to locate the lawyer via phone, email, and WhatsApp, but there was no response and the newspaper did not publish the news.
Romero also recounted communications that another El Pais editor, Juan José Mateo, exchanged with Ayuso’s chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, on the afternoon of March 13, hours before the email being investigated for leaking reached the prosecutor. Rodriguez told this editor just after 7:30 p.m. That the Public Prosecutor’s Office has proposed an agreement to defend Gonzalez Amador, information that the world Published at 9:29 p.m. This account contradicted what El Pais had up to that point, so Romero, according to what he said at trial, tried to confirm it with the head of press in the Office of the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, but he told him that he could neither confirm nor deny it. The Deputy Director then contacted the Public Prosecutor’s Office press officer, who also said she could not confirm this but that a press release would be prepared to clarify the situation.
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