The judge in the DANA case requests that Carlos Mazón be charged.

ValenciaJudge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, who is presiding over the DANA storm case, has taken the step of requesting the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community to indict Carlos Mazón for manslaughter, negligent injury, and failure to provide assistance due to what she has described as "negligent inaction" in the handling of the storm. This decision elevates the case to the regional court, which will have to decide on the future of the former president, who retains his protected status as a member of the Valencian Parliament. If the Valencian High Court accepts the judge's arguments, Mazón will join former Minister of Justice and the Interior Salomé Pradas and her former deputy, Emilio Agüero, who are the only other individuals currently charged in the case.

In a lengthy 109-page document, to which ARA has had access, the judge states that the Generalitat's "negligence" continued "for long hours" despite the fact that deaths "were occurring relentlessly" and without "basic decisions being made." Ruiz Tobarra asserts that Pradas and Agüero cannot be held "solely" responsible for this inaction, and adds Mazón for his lack of "coordination" within the regional administration—a task entrusted to the head of the Consell by law—as the Provincial Court of Valencia pointed out a few months ago. This argument has underpinned the recent interrogations of the former president's top aides and has ultimately proven crucial.

The magistrate believes that the gravity of the situation "required the president's involvement" and that he "contacted the regional minister," whom, she emphasizes, Mazón chose despite her complete lack of knowledge of emergency procedures, as Pradas admitted in her statement as a defendant. In this regard, she complains of the "flagrant lack of coordination and cooperation" between the regional ministries, for which she again holds the head of the regional government responsible. This task falls within the "president's own duties," she emphasizes. Perhaps in the harshest section of the ruling, the judge denounces that "faced with an extremely serious situation," the PP leader "opted for a passive attitude" and "secluded himself in a private room at a restaurant" for "almost five hours." Furthermore, she finds a "causal link" between "the president's passivity," his lack of coordination, and the deaths recorded as a consequence of the "failure to issue warnings." "We would be facing evidence of absolute negligence in the coordination and management of the emergency," he summarizes.

Ruiz Tobarra also bases her decision on the conversation that took place on the afternoon of the disaster between Mazón's former chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca, and Salomé Pradas. In it, the former high-ranking official instructed the then-regional minister not to confine the population, specifically telling her, "No confinement, Salo." According to the investigating judge, this expression has "a clearly imperative character," and Cuenca's position as Mazón's right-hand man makes his messages "orders" and not "mere opinions or advice," as the former chief of staff has argued in his testimony. For the judge, Cuenca showed "an insistence on controlling the emergency that can only logically be explained by him obeying instructions from his superior." In this regard, she points out that his words "generated a paralysis at crucial moments" that was key "in the deadly outcome of the emergency response." Furthermore, she recalls that Cuenca told Pradas that the president would arrive shortly, a remark that, according to the magistrate, was "a way of telling him to wait for Mazón's arrival" before making a decision.

Ruiz Tobarra's decision comes after the testimony of the former head of the Valencian government, who on Friday confirmed the falsity of the multiple versions offered by the PP leader and his team regarding their handling of the disaster, and especially regarding his arrival at the Palau de la Generalitat and the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (CECOPI). According to sources present at his appearance who spoke to elARA, the driver stated that the first ES-Alert – at 8:11 p.m. – sounded while Mazón was heading to the Emergency Coordination Center, located in the metropolitan town of L'Eliana, and before he had even left the city of Valencia. The driver's account coincides with the version given by his bodyguards on February 9, who placed the PP leader's arrival at the Palau at 7:50 p.m. "He was alone. He went up to the office and said, 'I'll be right back and we'll leave,'" they explained. This is also supported by the testimony of the head of the security detail, who admitted it was "exceptional" that he returned from the El Ventorro restaurant without security. "Normally, he tells us his pick-up time," he summarized. In contrast, Josep Lanuza, advisor to former Valencian president Carlos Mazón, stated this Monday that the former head of the Consell arrived at the Palau on the day of the DANA storm "between 7:30 and 7:42 p.m." This version suggests that Mazón was, albeit for a very brief period of 25 minutes, monitoring the torrential rains in his office. The accounts of the driver and the bodyguards would corroborate Mazón's lies, who initially denied being at a lunch and claimed he had been working in his office since early afternoon. Later, he admitted to having lunch with journalist Maribel Vilaplana at the restaurant, but maintained that he returned to the Palau around 6 p.m. and joined the Cecopi shortly after 7 p.m. He subsequently delayed his arrival time at his office until 7 p.m. It wasn't until November 2025, more than a year after the disaster, that it was discovered that after a nearly four-hour lunch, the former president had accompanied the journalist to a nearby parking lot. They reportedly said goodbye shortly after 7:30 p.m., and the former head of the Consell arrived at the Palau at 7:50 p.m. and at the Cecopi at 8:28 p.m.