Koldo García refuses to testify before the Supreme Court, and the Prosecutor's Office does not request his imprisonment.

MadridFor the second day in a row, the Supreme Court followed a virtually identical script. After José Luis Ábalos appeared yesterday, this Thursday it was Koldo García's turn. Just as the former Minister of Transport did, his former advisor refused to testify, criticizing the investigating judge in the alleged corruption case at the high court, Leopoldo Puente, who now must make the decision to either send him to prison or keep him free. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, as was the case with Ábalos, has not requested his imprisonment, even though it sees a certain risk of flight. The Popular Party (PP) prosecutors, led by the People's Party (PP), have again requested provisional detention without bail. If events continue to unfold as they did on Wednesday, Koldo will likely be released shortly with the same precautionary measures that were being applied to him: revocation of his passport and biweekly appearances in court.

According to legal sources, the former advisor has justified exercising his right not to testify by the fact that Puente denied him access to the telephone devices and computer terminals seized on February 20, 2024, when the Civil Guard searched his home. Without the dirt from the audios that were extracted and feed the reports of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) that point to her, Koldo maintains, "she cannot contextualize" the statements attributed to her. The former advisor claimed that "no one can remember conversations from seven years ago." These messages and audios extracted from these terminals have served investigators to bolster an account of the events that reveals that the former advisor allegedly managed Ábalos's black accounting system, with which he paid him personal expenses with money of opaque origin.

Koldo arrived at the Supreme Court about ten minutes before his scheduled appearance, having previously been in the office of his lawyer, Leticia de la Hoz, to prepare for his appearance. On the way from there to the high court, the former advisor was hounded by the press. The chief prosecutor for the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, Alejandro Luzón, criticized him for being "so talkative" with the media, yet remaining silent within the high court. However, in his intervention, the Public Prosecutor's Office maintained the same line of not considering his imprisonment justified. In the case of Ábalos, the judge considered that, despite the fact that the latest Civil Guard report on the case provides "very strong" evidence against Ábalos and increases the risk of flight, there were still insufficient grounds to imprison him. He thus dismissed the request made by both the People's Party (PP) and up to seven other Popular Prosecutors, which the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office had opposed. Former PSOE number three Santos Cerdán is currently the only suspect in the case who is in prison.

This Thursday's interrogation sought to shed light on the content of the latest UCO report, according to which José Luis Ábalos paid at least 95,437 euros in personal expenses through his former advisor. Investigators' hypothesis is that there was "a reserve of cash at [Ábalos's] disposal" managed for him by both Koldo and his ex-wife, Patricia Úriz.

Feijóo joins the judge's "stupor"

After Judge Puente, in his ruling refusing to send Ábalos to prison, stated that he understands "the natural stupor" that the former minister can retain his seat in Congress despite the "consistent evidence" against him, Alberto Núñez Feijóo echoed the sentiment. "The vast majority of Spaniards share this stupor," he stated during a media briefing at a breakfast address given by the Galician Prime Minister, Alfonso Rueda. The PP leader rejected the notion that the Spanish government is "decent," as Pedro Sánchez defended during Wednesday's control session, and said that he doesn't understand why any party in the plurinational majority would "once and for all withdraw its confidence" in the Spanish Prime Minister when he is "absolutely surrounded by corruption."

The Popular Party spokesperson in the Senate, Alicia García, joined in the use of the expression "stupor." In an appearance in which she announced that the Spanish Prime Minister must appear before the commission of inquiry into the Koldo case on October 30th at 9:00 a.m. Representatives from the Spanish government and the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) expressed the opinion that this is an attempt to cover up the first anniversary of the Valencian Community's insolvency proceedings, which falls the day before, and criticized the judge's words, who urged "reflection" on the appropriateness of the law allowing Ábalos to continue serving as a deputy. "Each branch must intervene in its own sphere," argued the Socialist First Vice President and number two, María Jesús Montero, in statements in the corridors of the lower house.