D-Day at the Supreme Court: Ábalos, Koldo, and Aldama testify in the mask trial

MadridKey day in the trial against José Luis Ábalos, which began in the Supreme Court in early April. After ten sessions, the former Minister of Transport, his former advisor Koldo García, and the businessman Víctor de Aldama will have to testify as defendants for the alleged irregularities in the purchase of masks during the pandemic, thenepotism of women close to the then number three of the PSOE and other favors that are under suspicion. The man who was Pedro Sánchez's closest confidant has been in Soto del Real prison for five months and faces between 24 years and 30 years in prison. There will be nine crimes on the table, including membership in a criminal organization, bribery, influence peddling, and embezzlement.

Early in the morning, in Congress, the PP has taken the opportunity to harshly criticize Pedro Sánchez. Feijóo to Sánchez: "The trial of Ábalos is a trial of your government. For that reason alone, he should be sitting there," Alberto Núñez Feijóo snapped at the Spanish Prime Minister. The PP's number two, Miguel Tellado, has accused Yolanda Díaz of looking the other way regarding the alleged corruption related to the PSOE and of being resigned to "seeing, hearing, and remaining silent." And the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, has also lashed out at the first vice president of the Spanish government, Carlos Cuerpo: "If he were an honest man, he would be calling for the president's resignation, but this is more sanchismo".

According to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the then minister used his “valuable influence”, the advisor took advantage of his “services”, and the businessman and alleged facilitator sought companies or individuals who wanted to deal with the administration to assert their interests in an “arbitrary” manner. All this, in exchange for the “continued payment of large sums of money” within the framework of a “criminal conspiracy”.

The first to be interrogated will be Víctor de Aldama, the alleged fixer of the scheme and for whom the Prosecutor's Office is seeking seven years in prison. The expectation is that he will admit the facts, as the businessman agreed to cooperate with the Prosecutor's Office when he was in preventive detention for alleged fuel fraud, for which he continues to be investigated by the National Court. This has allowed the penalties he faces to be lower than those of the other two defendants. But Aldama is not satisfied and wants to further reduce his sentence by appealing for "proactive collaboration" with justice from an "early date" that has allowed "boosting and expanding" the investigation.

Next will be Koldo García's turn, and finally, José Luis Ábalos, all of them in preventive detention. It is not clear whether they will answer the Prosecutor's Office and the PP or only their lawyers. In his defense statement, the former minister completely denies having carried out any “criminal plan” to facilitate public contracts in exchange for a commission: “There were no illegal incomes,” he stresses. And he points out that the prices paid were neither “excessive” nor “higher than market prices or than what other administrations had paid”.