The Supreme Court raises the hypothesis that the PSOE helped Ábalos or Koldo to "launder" money

MadridThe day after Pedro Sánchez reiterates his address to the Senate Faced with attacks from the right claiming there are no irregularities in the PSOE's financing, the Supreme Court has made a move that calls into question the explanations of the Spanish Prime Minister. The investigating judge in the Ábalos/Koldo case, Leopoldo Puente, asked the National Court to investigate the cash payments made by the PSOE to former minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo García, supposedly to cover justified expenses, according to the party. However, Puente believes that the flow of cash at the party headquarters on Ferraz Street has "unanswered questions that must be clarified." Given the suspicion of potential irregular financing and also possible money laundering, the Supreme Court judge is passing the buck to the National Court. "What Sánchez saw as perfectly normal yesterday in the Senate's investigative committee is not. TRUE "Sánchez's didn't even last 24 hours," tweeted the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

The main part of the case in the Supreme Court concerns the alleged commissions that Ábalos and Koldo supposedly received from public works contracts. And, for the moment, there is no evidence that there is no evidence. Therefore, the judge does not consider both issues to be clearly "indivisible" and believes they should be investigated separately. The correspondence has not been confirmed."

Unsatisfactory statements

Ábalos and Koldo refused to testify a few weeks ago when summoned, and this week the former party manager, Mariano Moreno, and an employee, Celia Rodríguez, who handled payments, had to appear as witnesses. As the PSOE also alleged, in their testimony they corroborated that "it is possible" that there were expense reports "from the organizing team in whose management Koldo García may have had some involvement," the judge explains in his ruling. "It was not verified before handing over the cash, according to the managing director, whether the person claiming reimbursement was, in fact, the one who, according to the receipts or invoices provided, had incurred the expenses." In other words, perhaps allowances were being paid to "friends, family members, or neighbors," the magistrate speculates.

But it also wasn't verified whether the alleged expenses supposedly advanced by PSOE leaders were paid in cash or by bank transfer, making it impossible to know if the money advanced had an illicit or criminal origin. And it also wasn't verified, the judge adds, "whether by offsetting these expenses, their origin wasn't being laundered," given that a person could be in charge of managing the settlement of expenses that weren't necessarily their own, but rather those of third parties.

In his appearance this Thursday in the Senate, Sánchez explained that 75% of the PSOE's income comes from public subsidies and 25% from membership dues and contributions from senior officials, who give part of their salary to the party. Former manager Moreno stated that the party's bank account was funded from these sources, and that some cash was withdrawn from it for the party's cash fund. "It is incomprehensible that it was necessary to hire a security company to transfer significant sums of money from the operating account to the party's treasury, only to then hand them over in cash, instead of more conveniently making the payments via bank transfers," the magistrate points out.

Aldama's testimony

"Nothing clarifies, therefore, that the funds recorded in the cash register came from the bank account," the judge notes. "Of course, if there had been cash payments other than those recorded, the income wouldn't be recorded either," he adds. In other words, Leopoldo Puente suspects the party's financing. To reinforce this, he cites the testimonies of businessman Víctor de Aldama and businesswoman Carmen Pano. "Aldama testified that he was told that a large portion of the cash Koldo García gave him was intended for the party," the judge says. "Pano stated that she went to the PSOE headquarters twice in October 2020 and handed over €45,000 in cash on each occasion." According to Spain's First Vice President and number two in the PSOE, María Jesús Montero, the PSOE's cash payments are "transparent" and have "traceability." Speaking to the media from Algeciras, he distinguished between expense reports "with prior invoices" and the receipt of "envelopes" (slush funds) by PP leaders. The PSOE issued a statement asserting that it will provide all banking documentation that "proves that all the cash used to cover the expense reports came from the PSOE's bank account. All cash paid has a clear and legal traceability, with no discrepancies or unrecorded transactions."