The owner of El Ventorro says that Mazón and Vilaplana were the last customers to leave, between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m.

BarcelonaVentorro has unwittingly become the most striking evidence of Carlos Mazón's negligent handling of the situation on the day of the DANA storm. In this centrally located restaurant in Valencia, the then-president of the Valencian government had lunch for over four hours with journalist Maribel Vilaplana, even though he was aware, as he admitted, of the critical situation in Utiel. He did not cancel the meal, although, as revealed by ARA, The broadcaster had already rejected his offer to direct À Punt two weeks earlierThe owner of the establishment, Alfredo Romero, who was summoned to the Catarroja courthouse this Friday, explained that the two diners left the restaurant "between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. approximately," when there were no other customers left. He also confirmed that the Valencian president was in no hurry to leave, as Vilaplana had already stated in his testimony a few weeks ago. When questioned by one of the private prosecutors, he asserted that he did not see Mazón "worried." In fact, he indicated that lunch ended at 4:45 p.m., a quarter of an hour before the start of the Cecopio (a regional emergency plan), and that the conversation after lunch lasted for another couple of hours. Romero, who was aware of the approaching storms, sent two of his employees home around 6:00 p.m., as they lived in the towns affected by the DANA (isolated high-level depression). "Before it started to rain, I told them to leave," he admitted, without clarifying whether he spoke with the president about the weather. He also revealed that Mazón was the first to arrive at the restaurant, between 2:15 and 2:30 p.m., alone and without an escort, and that Vilaplana arrived later, around 2:50 or 3:00 p.m., which may help to understand What time did the journalist leave the parking lot? based on the hours he spent at the restaurant.

Romero explained that he personally attended to Mazón and Vilaplana and that he entered the private room some seven or eight times, but assured the investigating judge, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, that he did not hear any of the calls he made to or received from the head of the Consell. The magistrate had summoned Romero to find out if he had overheard any conversations between Mazón and Pradas. With the same objective, the judge has summoned the bodyguards, who did not accompany Mazón when he left the lunch, and the driver to testify this Friday, to find out if they heard Mazón speaking with Pradas. Ruiz summoned the owner of El Ventorro after Vilaplana testified that he was "the only person who went in and out of the room where they were" and that he even stayed for a while while the president signed some documents that a Generalitat official brought to the restaurant related to elite athletes. "I don't remember seeing him talking on the phone. I have no recollection whatsoever," Romero stated.

The Generalitat, not the PP, reserved the table

The declarant also indicated that he sent the invoice to the PP, although at first Mazón claimed it was a "working lunch" after hiding and to give different versions of the controversial mealBe that as it may, Romero has admitted that the reservation was made by the Generalitat (the Catalan government), which contradicts Mazón's latest version of events, that it was a party event. "I received a call from the Generalitat to reserve a table," said Romero, who revealed that it was two or three days prior. "The number of guests wasn't specified, only that it was a table for the president," he added. Romero said he sent the bill the next day or two days later, but since it was a bill and not a receipt, the exact time of departure from the establishment cannot be established. His testimony, therefore, does not clarify the great mystery of that day: what Mazón did from the time he accompanied Vilaplana in the parking lot around 7:00 p.m. until he arrived at the Cecopio (the Catalan government's headquarters) at 8:30 p.m.

Pérez Llorca enters the courthouse through the garage

Mazón's successor as president of the Generalitat, Juanfran Pérez Llorca, who is scheduled to be sworn in next Thursday, was the next to testify. The PP candidate, who entered through the garage to avoid the journalists, explained to the judge that he called Mazón at 6:57 p.m. on the day of the storm to ask about the situation in Utiel, a town that had been completely flooded for about five hours and where the Military Emergency Unit had been activated since midnight. Pérez Llorca learned of the situation because he saw images on television in a café after leaving a medical appointment in Villajoyosa. It was then that he called Mazón, who told him that "there had been problems in the Ribera region that morning," without specifying that at that moment he was still in the restaurant or on his way to the parking lot and not coordinating the emergency response. Mazón, who didn't even call the mayor of Utiel, despite asking the president of the Valencia Provincial Council, Vicent Mompó, for his phone number, and who only called the mayor of Cullera for reasons that remain unclear, asked him to make a "round" of calls to former mayors and councilors "to see," to see, "to see." Pérez Llorca admitted that he wasn't aware of the "significance and seriousness" of the situation and that it didn't sink in until he saw the images from Utiel. "Until that moment, I knew nothing," he declared. Immediately after the call to Mazón, Pérez Llorca phoned the then-regional councilor Salomé Pradas to ask for information. The first call lasted 14 seconds at 6:58 p.m., and the second, a minute later, was barely nine seconds long, according to the notarized record of Pradas's calls included in the case file. Pradas, who was at the Eliana Emergency Coordination Center, at the Cecopio meeting and also wasn't feeling well, told him she was very "busy." Pérez Llorca has asserted that the calls with Mazón and Pradas had nothing to do with any kind of authorization to send the ES-Alert, thus aligning himself with the acting president, who maintains that he had no responsibility for the alert to the public in order to avoid being charged.