The 3 hour and 19 minute audio recorded by Madrid prosecutor Ignacio Stampa of the meeting he had with former activist and former PSOE advisor Leire Díez on May 7 will continue in the case in which she and businessman Javier Pérez Dolset are being investigated. The president of Madrid’s Court of Instruction number 9, Arturo Zamarreño, who is investigating the alleged existence of a plot to discredit the leaders of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in charge of cases against politicians and businessmen, has issued an order in which he refuses to cancel the latter, as Díez herself had requested. On November 17, she told the magistrate that her voice was not recognized in these recordings and alleged that its inclusion in the case violated her rights to privacy, confidentiality of communications and not to testify against herself. The former socialist activist is accused, along with Pérez Dolset, of the alleged commission of an offense of corruption and another of influence peddling.
In his resolution, Judge Zamarreño supports his decision that it is not appropriate “at the moment” to cancel said recordings, since during the investigation of the case it is not the time for this. The magistrate emphasizes that “this moment can be placed in the oral phase itself, by asking preliminary questions”, at the beginning of the hearing, when “the procedural object has already been substantially delimited through the presentation of the provisional conclusions, and the parties have also been able to delimit the table of evidence that they will try to use to defend their respective claims”. In this sense, he emphasizes, it will then be that the court will have “an unbeatable perspective of analysis of all actions”, which will allow it “to evaluate in a more rigorous manner the effects and the mechanisms of interaction between the different means that make up the evidentiary framework”. The order does not allow for appeal.
The audios came from prosecutor Stampa himself, who had previously provided other documents, including several WhatsApp conversations that reveal precisely how the May 7 appointment during which he made the recording was falsified, as well as a notarial deed documenting its existence. The member of the Public Prosecutor’s Office also provided internal emails from the Prosecutor’s Office which show that, following the publication in different news media of Leire Díez as allegedly responsible for “plumbing work at the PSOE”, he cut off communication with the former socialist and informed his superiors of what had happened. Stampa has indeed become one of the key witnesses in this affair.
In the recording that the judge refused to cancel “for the moment”, the prosecutor is heard asking Díez if she was the “right hand” of the current PSOE organizational secretary Santos Cerdán and she already answers in the affirmative. “It is strictly confidential and it is something that remains here, but let’s say that I am the person who put the PSOE to see what is behind all this,” said the former socialist activist. In his testimony before the judge, the prosecutor said he thought Cerdán would attend the meeting organized by businessman Luis del Rivero in his office. “I will be transferred later, then I will have a meeting with him,” explained Leire Díez upon his arrival a few minutes later.
This recorded conversation revolved around two topics. On the one hand, the investigation into the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, in the audios he recorded and in the information they process about prosecutors and judges. During part of these investigations, Stampa was one of two prosecutors in charge of the case. On the other hand, on the fact that his position in the fight against corruption was not renewed. In his testimony before the judge as a witness, the prosecutor assured that his interlocutors had tried to obtain information against his partner José Grinda (with whom he also contacted the alleged plot to propose a pact), on the magistrate Manuel García-Castellón (who investigated the Villarejo affair) and the anti-corruption attorney general, Alejandro Luzón. “Luzon was the main objective,” he told the judge.
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