Zapatero's version: a "giant error" by UDEF
The former Spanish president feels targeted since the 2023 Spanish elections campaign, but is preparing a technical defense
MadridThe only thing José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has said since Tuesday, May 19th transcended his indictment at the National Court
Arroyo does not enter into dismantling the police report, as it is the lawyer who will pilot the defense in these terms, but he does put forward alternative versions to some points contained in the investigation. For example, on one of the issues that has generated the most controversy: the jewelry. Zapatero assures that they are the result of an inheritance from Sonsoles Espinosa, Zapatero's wife, and "gifts from trips" by the couple, for a value –he states– of between 30,000 and 50,000 euros. This is one of the things, in fact, that the former president's lawyer will have to have appraised to defend himself and deny that they could be payments in kind in exchange for political favors, which is one of the police's indications.
Another element that Arroyo brings to the table and that appears in the UDEF report is the early cancellation of the half-million-euro mortgage that the family took out for a property in Madrid. The police note that it is money from an account that also received income from companies considered part of the alleged criminal network; but Zapatero's spokesperson emphasizes that they canceled the loan because they sold the house where they lived in Aravaca (Madrid). They are now in a rented apartment in the Spanish capital awaiting the construction of another house.
Regarding lobbyist activities, which Zapatero had not previously highlighted, he defends the possibility of undertaking consultancy or intermediation work, as other former presidents do. Always emphasizing his role in mediating international conflicts, especially in Venezuela. However, he maintains that, despite doing lobbyist work, he did not intervene in the Plus Ultra rescue and disassociates himself from conversations by third parties – the airline's shareholders with Julio Martínez Martínez, whom the police consider his frontman – in which they do claim to have spoken with him.
A technical defense
Zapatero's chosen lawyer, Moreno Catena, is a highly prestigious professor of procedural law, of Extremaduran origin and a great strategist in procedural appeals. In other words, the former Spanish president will make a technical defense before the judge, unlike the political defense that, for example, the former PSOE organization secretary Santos Cerdán makes with the Catalan lawyer Benet Salellas. Some experts suggest that he will attack the forms of the investigation and not so much the substantive issues.
an increase in "attacks" by the right an increase in "attacks" from the right and also digital information related to him and Venezuela. Zapatero lets slip an "they are after me", without using, of course, the word lawfare.
The socialists, in fact, avoid using this concept that until now had only been used by the independence movement, which was the subject of numerous judicial cases during the "Procés". The one who has gone furthest, in this sense, has been the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, who has directly said that they are trying to "overthrow the government by non-democratic means". This Friday he has redoubled the pressure with a video in which he contradicts the UDEF report on a contract from his ministry that is in the spotlight: "There is an interest in ending the government and anything goes". A message of up to ten minutes that is causing a sensation among socialist cadres and directly attacks the media. In his opinion, both the UDEF report and what the press says about it is biased information: "What is seen in the media landscape has very little to do with reality", he concludes.