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

MadridNew decisive day at the Supreme Court. After the explosive statement by Víctor de Aldama, who decided to pull out the machine gun to shoot indiscriminately and try to implicate Pedro Sánchez and the financing of the PSOE, it is the turn of the man who was number three for the socialists and a strongman for the Spanish president. José Luis Ábalos faces between 24 and 30 years in prison for crimes such as belonging to a criminal organization, bribery, influence peddling, and embezzlement. And today he will have the opportunity to give explanations. Before him, it will be the turn of his right-hand man in the Ministry of Transport, Koldo García. Both have been in Soto del Real prison since the end of November.

In a six-and-a-half-hour statement, and without providing any evidence, the businessman and alleged fixer of the scheme implicated Pedro Sánchez in the Koldo case and stated that construction companies illegally financed the PSOE. "If there is a hierarchy of a criminal organization, Sánchez is in the first echelon," he said. "I was told that the president knew everything," he added. He ratified that he paid 10,000 euros a month to Ábalos and Koldo: "They always told me that part of that money went to the financing of the Socialist Party," he stressed. And he stated that Koldo told him that Sánchez "knew and was clear about" everything they were doing.

The second leg that splashed the PSOE's finances had to do with construction companies. Koldo would have introduced Aldama to construction companies that worked for the ministry: "We have to see how we can help them so that they win the tender. In the end they will win it, but if we help them to win, we can have a return that we need for the financing of the party," he recalled that Ábalos's advisor would have explained to him.

What does the Prosecutor's Office accuse them of?

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 “continuous payment of large sums of money” within the framework of a “criminal conspiracy”.

In his defense brief, 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 emphasizes that the prices paid were neither “excessive” nor “higher than market prices or those paid by other administrations”.