Peinado defends the withdrawal of passport from Begoña Gómez recalling the flight of an Italian ex-prime minister
The judge maintains that he did not want to "offend" Pedro Sánchez's wife's bodyguards, but insists that there are police officers who "do not fulfill their obligations"
MadridJuan Carlos Peinado returns to defend tooth and nail having revoked Begoña Gómez's passport and having prevented her from leaving Spain to avoid her fleeing. He does so in a report he has submitted to the Madrid Court of Appeal in response to the appeal filed by the defense of Pedro Sánchez's wife against the precautionary measures. He acts as if he doesn't hear a thing and “reaffirms and reiterates” all of them. Two days ago, another judge, who replaced him, prevented her from traveling to Turkey to accompany Sánchez to the NATO summit, but allowed her to go to London for her daughter's graduation. “It would not be the first occasion on which a prime minister of a member state of the European Union has fled to a country on the African continent in the face of proceedings related to a corruption scheme,” Peinado states in the document, to which ARA has had access.
He speaks of Bettino Craxi, even though seven years had passed since he stepped down when he fled. He was Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for the Mani Pulite case – an extensive network of political corruption that involved the main political groups and several companies – and in 1994 he fled to Tunisia, where he died in 2000. By the way, in the document, dated June 30, Peinado goes so far as to reproach Antonio Camacho, Begoña Gómez's lawyer, for making an “unnecessarily verbose” exposition of arguments to question the passport revocation.
Begoña Gómez's escorts
The judge who sent Begoña Gómez to trial also alludes again to the role of the Spanish president's wife's bodyguards. Initially, he argued that the agents could "collaborate" in an alleged escape on their "own initiative" or "following orders from their hierarchical superiors," an insinuation that provoked complaints from police unions and led the Judiciary to open a process to reprimand him. Now he says he did not say it was "probable or foreseeable," but rather that he posed a "mere hypothesis." He expresses that he did not want to "offend or belittle" the agents' work, who "generally and almost all" act in an "exemplary" manner, but reiterates that the bodyguards' "mission" is to "protect her from third parties from possible attacks on her physical integrity," and not to "prevent movements or displacements that she deems convenient".
And he takes his argument a step further to cast doubt on the Spanish police. He alleges that if there were no "possibility" of agents "not adequately fulfilling their obligations," the existence of the Internal Affairs Unit "would make no sense." "It was created precisely for this reason, its existence is necessary and its dissolution is not foreseen," he concludes.
Finally, he recalls that there have been "various cases" in which, with "greater or lesser social significance," officials have appeared who have been subject to "disciplinary or criminal reproach," and cites the Unit for Economic and Fiscal Crime (UDEF). Currently, the former head of the UDEF is being investigated by the National Court because he had more than 20 million euros from drug trafficking between his home and his official office. He also recalls the case of Carlos Salamanca, who was the chief commissioner of Barajas airport and was convicted of having received gifts – in kind and in cash – from two businessmen in exchange for preferential treatment for their clients and relatives.
