The former DANA Interior Minister asks that the case against her be dropped and presents herself as a "scapegoat."

BarcelonaThe judicial investigation into the management of the DANA (National Flood Control Center) continues its course: the judge summoned former Interior Minister Salomé Pradas, who was later dismissed following the flood disaster that left at least 225 dead in the Valencian Community, as a suspect on April 11. However, Pradas has challenged this decision and has asked the presiding judge of Catarroja Court No. 3 to close the investigation against her. The former minister presents herself as a "scapegoat" for the tragedy and attributes the victims and damages to the DANA (National Flood Control Center) to the failure to execute the works to channel the water that overflowed the Poio ravine. Pradas's defense also argues that this was all due to a natural disaster that, "due to its nature and speed," could not have been foreseen or avoided. "No one has threatened the lives of the deceased," states her appeal, which requests that the case be removed from criminal proceedings and, if necessary, transferred to administrative proceedings.

Pradas' defense thus tries to defuse what has been the instructor's main thesis: that, hours before sending the mass alert, the Valencian Government already had data demonstrating the extent of the floods, yet it did nothing to alert the public. In a ruling released last week, the judge recalled that at 5:10 p.m. on October 29, there were already people pleading for help for their families, trapped and on the verge of drowning. In the ruling, she even cited witnesses who appear in audio recordings of 112 calls. However, the Valencian Government did not send the alert until after 8:00 p.m.

The lawyer for the former Interior Minister avoids taking any responsibility for this decision and also takes aim at the Spanish government representative, Pilar Bernabé. In this regard, the judge maintains that there was "co-direction" on the protection measures with the Spanish government delegate and maintains that there was no internal protocol for 112 and civil protection authorities to transmit information about the overflowing of the internal basins to the Emergency Coordination Center, Cecopio. Former Secretary of Emergencies of the Valencian Government, Emilio Argüeso, is also being investigated in the case. In fact, in another appeal, Argüeso confirmed that 112 did not send a single message to Cecopio "throughout the afternoon and evening."

Furthermore, the judge has summoned relatives of seventeen flood victims to testify this week as injured parties. She also rejected HazteOír as a private prosecutor. Instead, she has accepted the participation of Ciudadanos, which joins the other private prosecutors present: Podemos, Vox, the PSOE, associations from the Valencian Community, and the FTAP-CGT union.