The former PSOE manager builds a firewall with the "thieves" of the Koldo case

MadridOne of the questions that the eighth day of the trial in the Ábalos case has sought to resolve is where the cash that José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García had came from. During the investigation, the Civil Guard detected more than 95,000 euros from the former Minister of Transport and former number three of the PSOE without bank tracking. This reinforced the thesis of "the existence of undeclared cash income" and triggered the opening of a separate proceeding in the National Courton the financing of the PSOE. The investigating judge posed the hypothesis that the PSOE helped Ábalos or Koldo to "launder" money. This Wednesday, in the Supreme Court, two lines of action became apparent during the testimony of Mariano Moreno, who was the party's manager between 2017 and 2021. He first stated that Ferraz "never" handed over 100, 200, and 500 euro bills, which are the ones the Civil Guard suspects Koldo and his circle managed – with code names. Later, the lawyer for Ábalos's former advisor, wanting to demonstrate that all the money he received was "of legal origin," sought to highlight possible errors in the documentation that the socialists sent to the courts.

All the money that the PSOE paid to compensate for expenses that had been advanced came from the party's "operating account." "There is no other source of income," stated Mariano Moreno, who detailed that the majority – 99.4% – was done through transfers and only a minority was in cash. He recounted that he requested the amount from the bank and they sent him the money through a security company: "We never asked for 500 euro bills, nor 200 euro bills, nor 100 euro bills, never. These bills that may have been given by the PSOE do not exist," he emphasized. The interest of these amounts is that the Civil Guard believes that Koldo García and his ex-wife, Patricia Úriz, used a "agreed language" to refer to cash "of unknown origin." The 500 euro bills were chistorras, the 200 euro ones were soles and the 100 euro ones were lechugas.

These are the expenses that the party paid to its workers and organic officials for items such as food, travel, tolls, or gasoline, which they paid initially and were later to be reimbursed. "Absolutely all reimbursements came with their supporting documents and receipts," made clear Mariano Moreno, who emphasized that Ferraz did a "review" of all the tickets and verified that "they corresponded to the activities for which it was stated they had been paid." At one point during the interrogation, he said that Ábalos was one of the PSOE leaders with "the most activity" and explained that he himself "authorized" his own expenses and those charged to his team. He also admitted, with a slight hesitation, that party salaries are low: "The payrolls weren't like in other places either."

"Koldo's money was of legal origin"

The most tense interrogation was that of Leticia de la Hoz, Koldo García's lawyer, who asked incisive questions about the PSOE's controls to try to discredit the "categorical" answers given by the witness, and who was constantly interrupted by the president of the court, Andrés Martínez Arrieta. "Can there be missing expense settlement sheets for Koldo García, that you have overlooked or that have been a mistake?", asked the lawyer.

She provided the Supreme Court with nine settlement sheets that were not included in the documentation sent by the PSOE and which she has now exhibited with difficulty because they were poorly scanned. And she wanted to prove that the money Koldo received "was of legal origin" and that he "could handle cash from various people". That is to say, to be the "recipient of this cash" and then distribute it. Mariano Moreno first affirmed it "with his head". And later, after a long tug-of-war with misunderstandings on one side and the other of the bench, he said that whoever signed the document was the one who received the money.

The subsequent witness, Celia Rodríguez, an employee of the PSOE's organization secretariat, elaborated on this point. She indicated that "normally" it was Koldo who went to get the cash that was intended for Ábalos, and that sometimes Patricia Úriz even went.