The most anticipated face-to-face meeting at the Catarroja courthouse

Valencia"Salo [Salomé Pradas], no confinement whatsoever." Did those words from Carlos Mazón's former chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca, and the request not to disturb the former Valencian president influence the delayed response from the former Minister of Justice and the Interior, Salomé Pradas, or, on the contrary, are the messages "taken out of context," as the former chief's right-hand man argued? This is one of the fundamental questions that Monday's confrontation between the former regional secretary and the main defendant should resolve, in one of the most anticipated days of the DANA case investigation.

The hearing is being held at the request of the private prosecution brought by Acció Cultural del País Valencià, which denounced the contradictions between the witnesses offered by Pradas and Cuenca. In fact, Mazón's right-hand man—now in the office of the former president of the Generalitat—already had to testify a second time days after the former minister. Make their messages publicThe reason: the WhatsApp conversation called into question the account given by the former sports journalist.

During his first appearance before the judge, the former chief of staff went so far as to say that he did not discuss with the former councilor "the possibility of sending the ES-Alert," a statement that clearly contradicts the conversation provided by Pradas, which reveals that he did warn her. In fact, despite all the details that came to light after the messages were leaked, in his second statement Cuenca stood by his version—otherwise he could have committed the crime of perjury—and denied having given any instructions, nor having done so on behalf of Carlos Mazón when the former president was having his four-hour lunch with the journalist. "Nobody instructed me to give orders to anyone, least of all to the councilor," he said. On the contrary, a few days earlier, in an interview on the program Saved —the only one she has offered so far—, Pradas asserted that after informing Mazón of the hydrological alerts that had been issued that morning, she contacted his chief of staff, who told her: "The president is at events, explain it to me."

Another striking element of Cuenca's second statement came when she maintained that the only messages exchanged with the former councilor were to express "legal doubts" about the possible lockdown of the population. In her opinion, it was the regional secretary of the Presidency, Cayetano García, who conveyed these doubts to her after contacting the Generalitat's legal department. The weak point of this account is that one The report from this body, made public last Thursday, invalidates it.The document, which ARA has obtained, indicates that García only telephoned the Generalitat's legal counsel "to warn him of the possibility" that Pradas might contact him in case it became necessary to issue a ruling on a potential lockdown, which ultimately was not agreed upon. On the other hand, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice and the Interior did call the coordinating lawyer for that department to inquire "whether a potential lockdown would have legal support." The lawyer's response was affirmative.

Another significant development in recent days regarding José Manuel Cuenca's actions came to light on Friday, when it was revealed that on January 7th, the former chief of staff returned one of his four official mobile phones to the Generalitat (Valencian regional government) with all data erased, as revealed in a report from the Directorate General of Information Technologies. This is a new element that Mazón's right-hand man will have to clarify this Monday and again on January 20th, when he will have to appear before the Congress of Deputies along with the former regional secretary of Emergencies and the second person charged in the case, Emilio Argüeso.