Ayuso's partner accuses the Attorney General of having "publicly killed" him: "Either I leave Spain or I commit suicide"

MadridThe second session of the trial of the Attorney General of Spain saw a battle erupt over the narrative between Isabel Díaz Ayuso's inner circle and that of the Spanish government. The testimony of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (MÁR), the Madrid president's chief of staff, and Alberto González Amador, Ayuso's partner, raised the deafening tone in the Supreme Court. According to their version of events, González Amador was the victim of a political conspiracy aimed at undermining Ayuso. González Amador accused Álvaro García Ortiz of having "publicly destroyed" him with the leak, for which, as a private prosecutor, he is seeking a four-year prison sentence for the head of the public prosecutor's office and €300,000 in compensation for the "damage" caused. "They have ruined my life: either I leave Spain or I commit suicide," he declared in a closing statement after nearly two hours of testimony.

González Amador has harshly criticized the Public Prosecutor's Office: he said he doesn't trust them and reproached them for having "condemned" him prematurely. "I became the confessed criminal of the Kingdom of Spain. [...] The entire Public Prosecutor's Office was after me," he insisted. Carlos Neira, who was then acting as the lawyer for Ayuso's partner in the tax fraud investigation, confirmed that the day after the leak, visibly "angry," González Amador verbally told him in a meeting that he held the Public Prosecutor's Office responsible and that he not only wanted to withdraw the proposal—which he claimed Ayuso put forward to protect the Madrid president despite her being "innocent"—but also intended to file a lawsuit against the Public Prosecutor's Office.

Both Neira and González Amador, as well as MÁR, have denied that they implemented a coordinated communication strategy to impose a false narrative in the media. Ayuso's chief of staff justified having spoken with Ayuso's lawyer and partner about the case, arguing that his job is to "protect the president's reputation" in a matter he believes would have amounted to nothing had it not been connected to her. "What the Prosecutor's Office has done is very serious," Rodríguez asserted, admitting that he accused García Ortiz, without evidence, of trying to sabotage the plea agreement. "It was a logical deduction" because it is a "hierarchical body," Ayuso's right-hand man said. Diego Lucas, the prosecutor who inherited the case after the leak, who also testified on Tuesday, denied having received any pressure to prevent the agreement.

An opposing narrative

The first witness of the day was Mar Hedo, head of press for the State Attorney General's Office, who presented a narrative contrary to that of Ayuso's inner circle. Hedo accused them of having generated, through the Madrid president's statements during those key days of March 2024 and through MÁR's messages to journalists, a "shadow of suspicion" over the actions of the Prosecutor's Office, which led them to have to set in motion an internal mechanism to clarify the situation, given the "confusion" that had been generated by the Community of Madrid. The press officer for the Attorney General lamented that the public prosecutor's office was being accused "almost of setting a trap" for González Amador. Former Secretary of Communication for La Moncloa, Francesc Vallès, also denied that there was any conspiracy against Ayuso's partner orchestrated from the Spanish government's presidency. "Impossible." "This isn't how it works," said Vallès, who asserted that he had no contact whatsoever with García Ortiz, whose phone number he claimed he didn't even have, or with any other member of the Attorney General's team to order the leak of the tax fraud case.

Who had the mail?

The first publication, as admitted by MÁR himself, revealing that there was a negotiation of a settlement agreement, was in The World On March 13 at 9:29 p.m., the newspaper published a false version based on an email from the previous day in which the Prosecutor's Office endorsed the possibility of a plea bargain, which Rodríguez had accessed around 9:00 a.m. However, MÁR has denied being the source of the information.The World, While he acknowledged that he spoke with a journalist fromThe Country before the news was published, and that he shared a screenshot of the email with other journalists after it had been published in the media. He also claimed that at the time he was unaware of a previous email from February 2nd, which contradicted the version he was disseminating because it demonstrated that the plea bargain request was initiated by González Amador's defense.

It was the content of this earlier email that the Prosecutor's Office released in a press release on March 14th, after some media outlets had already published it. Hedo asserted that, despite drafting the statement, he did not have the email. Rodríguez and González Amador also stated that it was not in their possession. Neira, who is its author, denied having spoken with journalists that night, although he admitted, under questioning by the defense, that he had previously sent it to a generic Prosecutor's Office email account and to a state attorney. This has exposed one of the strategies used by the State Attorney's Office to shift the focus away from García Ortiz by trying to prove that other people could have accessed the email and, therefore, allegedly disseminated it.