The decision of the Supreme Court that disqualifies Álvaro García Ortiz as Attorney General of the State has removed the great mystery of the case after the decision was announced almost three weeks ago: he is convicted for leaking the confession of tax fraud of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner, but also for being the person most responsible for a statement from the prosecution on the case. A statement whose role has changed during the process over a year and a half: it is the only thing that the Superior Court of Madrid investigated in the first phase of the case, it was relegated to the background by the Supreme Court itself and now it is the same judges who understand that this statement, which sought to deny the hoaxes around Ayuso, was also an inappropriate revelation of the data of the case of Alberto González Amador.
“We don’t know what we’re defending ourselves against, whether it’s the note or the email.” This sentence was one of the last thoughts expressed by José Ignacio Ocio, prosecutor in charge of the defense of García Ortiz, before the sentencing trial. Behind these words was the unknown that had hung over the case since its beginning in May last year: whether the statement issued by the prosecution to confront the lies of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez and several media outlets about the case was criminal or not.
The statement, just over a page and a half in its essential part, reached the media at 10:20 a.m. on the morning of March 14, 2024 through the Madrid Public Prosecutor’s Office. An eight-point “clarifications” statement that ends with a strong paragraph: “In short, the only agreement of compliance, with recognition of criminal acts and acceptance of criminal sanction, that has existed until now is the one proposed by the lawyer of Mr. Alberto González Amador.
Behind this statement were hours of hoaxes, cross-information and political statements. Lies coming from the cell phone of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, chief of staff of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, to try to make public opinion believe that the management of the public prosecutor’s office had caused the failure of a possible pact with the commissioner. The press release reflected what several media outlets had already published the day before: that no “order from above” had caused a deal to fail and that the only pact offer, a written confession, came from Ayuso’s partner, contrary to what she and the PP publicly defended.
The judgment that closes the case and condemns Álvaro García Ortiz affirms that he or someone close to him disclosed the email the previous night, but also considers that this release was criminal by revealing confidential data about the González Amador case. “The state attorney general cannot respond to fake news by committing a crime such as disclosing a letter of acknowledgment. » One of the most controversial points of nearly two years of investigations.
This statement was the first thing that González Amador and the Illustrious Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) denounced a week later. And this is why the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid opened proceedings against the prosecutors Julián Salto and Pilar Rodríguez. “It must be verified whether the limit of the public prosecutor’s right to information has been exceeded,” declared the judges at the opening of the procedure. Two months later, the judge sent the case back to the Supreme Court to have the attorney general investigated for his statements: “He had explicit consent and instructions, even under pressure, from the state attorney general’s office.”
A note with already revealed data
Five of the seven judges of the Supreme Court who tried the former attorney general are the same ones who, in October last year, took up the challenge of the TSJM and opened a trial against García Ortiz. In this resolution, they already had to analyze the statement of the prosecutor’s office on the case of Ayuso’s partner and came to a conclusion: everything it said, about the businessman’s confessions and his tax fraud, had already been revealed by the media the day before. But it was necessary to find out where the journalists got this information from.
“The information contained in the aforementioned information note had been highlighted by various press media and radio broadcasts on March 12 and 13,” the same magistrates then justified. “From the above it follows that it appears that no information was inappropriately revealed, given the public knowledge of the facts,” they concluded. The objective was no longer the note but to discover “how the media had access to emails”.
The Supreme Court – the same admission chamber and two other magistrates – not only now defends that this note is criminal, but also affirms that it never filed this part of the case. “At no time during the resolution was any fact set aside,” he now says. An issue that was also controversial during the investigation, the public prosecutor and the prosecution clashed head-on with judge Ángel Hurtado for putting the emphasis back on this note, now key to the conviction.
It was last January, when the attorney general went to the Supreme Court to testify, that the prosecution and the public prosecutor asked Hurtado to clarify the purpose of the investigation. The magistrate then explained that the press release was still somewhat suspicious and the public prosecutor underlined: “There is a discrepancy between the order which accepts the reasoned statement and the facts that he has just told us, there is dismay and we are protesting to go before the Constitutional Court”. Hurtado responded: “Obviously it doesn’t add up, Álvaro García Ortiz wasn’t even charged. »
The course of the trial revealed that the note always remained in the background behind the possible leak for which García Ortiz was also convicted. The prosecutor’s lieutenant, María Ángeles Sánchez Conde, made this clear during her brief questioning to the attorney general, when she only asked him if he had sent González Amador’s confession to the press. The criticism even came from within the Supreme Court itself: Judge Andrés Palomo, in his dissenting vote against the decision to try the Attorney General, was also clear: “The publication of the informative note does not constitute a criminal commission. Nothing is revealed that has not already been disclosed.”
The full ruling of the Supreme Court – known almost three weeks after the conviction – reveals that the press release is the key to the conviction of the attorney general because, now, it reveals confidential information: “The attorney general of the state cannot respond to false news by committing an offense such as disclosing a written acknowledgment.
The dissenting judges, Susana Polo and Ana Ferrer, believe that this statement never constituted a crime and that the Supreme Court itself established this in October 2024. “Informing public opinion that this had not been the case was not only a legal option, but the only legal option,” they assert. A private vote with special significance in this regard: Susana Polo was the spokesperson for the order which denied the criminal nature of this note. Today she claims that even then it was ruled out that the press release was illegal and that it was her former colleagues in the admissions room who changed their interpretation.
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