The trial of the attorney general, now awaiting judgment: "There is no evidence. He is innocent."

MadridThe trial of the Attorney General in the Supreme Court has concluded and is now awaiting judgment. after six sessions which failed to resolve the central question in the case against Álvaro García Ortiz: Who leaked the email containing confidential information about Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner? After analyzing the facts presented at the oral hearing, the prosecution insisted on blaming the head of the public prosecutor's office, for whom they are seeking a prison sentence of between three and six years. However, García Ortiz's defense countered that "they have no evidentiary basis." "There is no proof," insisted state attorney Ignacio Ocio this Thursday, during his closing arguments that concluded the two-week trial. Ocio proclaimed García Ortiz "innocent" and warned that "the constitutional activity" of the Attorney General has been criminalized, after yesterday's statement as the sole defendant has declined to exercise his right to speak last.

The Attorney General's future now rests in the hands of the seven judges of the court, with a conservative majorityThey have heard arguments from both sides. Will he be convicted of revealing secrets despite the lack of conclusive evidence that he was the one who sent the email to the journalists who published it? That is the question now before him. Ocio expressed confidence that they will not be "tainted" by the "parallel trial based on conjecture" that has taken place "in the media." "It is an adverse environment for the right to the presumption of innocence," lamented one of García Ortiz's defense attorneys. The prosecution has also requested his acquittal.

The prosecution does see evidence

Throughout the morning, the private prosecution brought by businessman Alberto González Amador and the four public prosecutions have attempted to justify why it is necessary to convict the Attorney General. One of the common arguments has been to attack the credibility of the journalists who, as witnesses, have exonerated García OrtizThe fact that they have invoked professional secrecy to avoid revealing their sources implies, in their view, that they might be hiding the truth, which, for them, is that the leaker is the Attorney General. One of the arguments made by the lawyer for Ayuso's partner, Gabriel Rodríguez-Ramos, was that, if he had nothing to hide, the Cadena SER journalist Miguel Ángel Campos—the first to publish verbatim excerpts from the email—would have had no problem showing his WhatsApp chat with García Ortiz. "If he weren't his source, what problem would he have?" he asked. Other accusations, such as that made by the ultra-right-wing pseudo-union Manos Limpias, justified the request for penalties because "the only reasonable explanation" is that it was García Ortiz, since he was the one who had the email and, at the same time, "an interest in its dissemination." "There is no alternative hypothesis," argued lawyer Víctor Soriano.

The fact that García Ortiz deleted messages that could have proven or disproven his involvement is another key element in the arguments against him. The Independent Professional Association of Prosecutors (APIF), a minority group within the prosecutor's office and the prosecution seeking the harshest sentence, has drawn a pointed comparison with the case of José Bretón, convicted of murdering his two minor children. Lawyer Juan Antonio Frago stated that "the bodies were never found" and that the "physical disappearance of the children" did not prevent Bretón from being sent to prison. According to Frago, the same applies to the Attorney General. Deleting the messages does not preclude the possibility of proving the crime. "The intentional deletion of evidence or proof of innocence has been taken as evidence against him," he asserted. García Ortiz's defense refuted each of these "improperly manipulated pieces of evidence" and denounced "gaps" in the investigation by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, which failed to consider that dozens of other people besides the Attorney General had access to the leaked email.

The "damage" to González Amador

González Amador's lawyer has argued that the Prosecutor's Office's strategy of leaking the emails is linked to the Moncloa Palace (the Prime Minister's office) and has denounced it as amounting to a "public verdict" against Ayuso's partner. The lawyer criticized the fact that his client was turned into a "political pawn" and He suffered personal and professional "damages" for which he is claiming 300,000 eurosThe defense, which criticized the lack of evidence of such harm to its businesses, justified García Ortiz's action in issuing a press release, which it disassociates from the prior leak of the email to the media, because the insinuations against the Prosecutor's Office by Ayuso's circle had an "unusual seriousness" that could not be ignored.