Santos Cerdán appears before the Senate: "I am innocent, I am not corrupt."

BarcelonaExpectations are high this morning in the Senate. Former PSOE number three Santos Cerdán, investigated for alleged corruption, appears in the upper house a month after leaving prisonHe was summoned at 10:00 a.m. to the Koldo case commission, where he had already appeared once before on April 30 of last year, and from the outset made it clear that he would exercise his right to remain silent regarding the specific facts for which he is being investigated. However, in his initial statement, he insisted on his innocence: "I will defend myself, make no mistake, I am innocent, I am not corrupt, and sooner or later you will be able to verify this."

When questioned by the media this Monday, taking advantage of one of his regular court appearances, Cerdán said he would face the music "when I have to," without elaborating. However, it should be noted that he has long denounced manipulation regarding his involvement in the scheme that also implicates former minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo García, starting with the audio recordings that incriminate him. "Many lies are being told, and there is a lot of manipulation," he said. he said upon his release from prisonOn November 19th.

This morning in the Clara Campoamor room, he will be asked for explanations, and although he refuses to testify, he will have to listen to the questions posed by the members of parliament. At least those of the representatives of the PP, Vox, and UPN, who usually use up their allotted speaking time even without answers. In his first appearance before the committee, the former Socialist Party organizing secretary denied any responsibility in the alleged corruption scheme and denied that Koldo was his "protégé." He distanced himself from his promotion in the Spanish government. Statements for which the far-right association Hazte Oír filed a complaint against him for being a false witness

More than a year later, in June of this year, Cerdán became a subject of investigation In the context of the Koldo case, he resigned as a member of parliament and leader of the PSOE and was placed in pretrial detention. He was imprisoned in Soto del Real until November, when he was released on bail. It was then that Ábalos and Koldo García were imprisonedWednesday's appearance in the Senate comes amid the worst crisis that Pedro Sánchez's government has had to face, due to the accumulation of cases in the courts and the cases of harassment that are surfacing within the party.