The image of the private room at El Ventorro where Mazón and Vilaplana had lunch

ValenciaAn austere yet elegant space. Spacious, but seemingly insufficient to prevent other diners from overhearing the conversations of the remaining guests. The owner of the El Ventorro restaurant in Valencia provided the investigating judge on Wednesday with a floor plan and two photographs of the private room where the acting head of the Valencian government, Carlos Mazón, and journalist Maribel Vilaplana dined on the day of the storm. He also submitted the receipt for the meal, which totaled 165 euros. According to the documentation provided by the restaurateur and accessed by ARA, the space where the president of the Valencian government and the journalist spent almost four hours measures 4.86 meters long and 2.83 meters wide at one point and 4.43 meters wide at another. It also has two windows, an entrance door, and what appear to be two bathrooms, according to the documents. As for the meal they enjoyed, the receipt indicates it consisted of "two set menus." The receipt does not include the time it was issued.

During his testimony, the owner of the establishment, Alfredo Romero, explained that the two diners left El Ventorro "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. In fact, he noted that lunch ended at 4:45 p.m., a quarter of an hour before the start of the Cecopio (a regional emergency management plan), and that the conversation after lunch lasted for another couple of hours. The restaurateur stated that he personally attended to the PP leader and the media personality and that he entered the private room about seven or eight times, but that he did not hear any of the calls made or received by the head of the Valencian government. He added that he was aware of the danger posed by the heavy rains and that he sent two of his employees home around 6:00 p.m., as they lived in the towns affected by the storm. "Before it started to rain, I told them to leave," he explained, without clarifying whether he spoke to the president about the weather. Alfredo Romero also asserted that the head of the Consell left the lunch wearing a jacket. This statement contradicts the one made by the journalist, who told the judge that in the private room, Mazón asked her permission to remove his tie and jacket and put on a yellow sweater. They also disagree regarding Mazón's conversations. "I don't remember seeing him talking on the phone. I have no recollection whatsoever," Romero stated, explaining that the private room wasn't very large, while Vilaplana said that, taking advantage of the space's dimensions, the conservative leader "would step aside" to speak more discreetly and that, consequently, she didn't hear the conversations.

The images and documents were made public on the same day that the person who, according to his account, organized the meeting between Mazón and Vilaplana testified before the judge. This individual is José Manuel Cuenca, Chief of Staff to the President, who explained that he lost all the WhatsApp messages he exchanged on October 29th of last year, when the torrential rains caused the deaths of 229 people in the Valencian Community alone. He told the magistrate this on Wednesday, according to sources present at his testimony, as reported by ARA. Cuenca, who holds the position of Regional Secretary of the President's Office and Communications, stated that he changed his mobile phone in July because his device was full, and lacking updated backups, he lost the messages. When asked about the period covered by the data loss, he cited between nine and twelve months.

Mazón's right-hand man also confirmed that Mazón decided to go to the Cecopio (the regional emergency response center) at 7:34 p.m., when the regional secretary for Infrastructure and Transport, Javier Sendra, explained to him that the central facilities and workshops of the Valencia metropolitan area metro service were flooding. This is the moment from which the acting head of the Valencian government resumed his calls – the last one had been at 6:57 p.m. – after a 37-minute disconnection, during which he had reportedly been walking and talking about football with journalist Maribel Vilaplana from the El Ventorro restaurant in Valencia to the parking lot where he said goodbye to her. At 7:43 p.m., the time at which Vilaplana is now known to have paid for parking, Mazón called the former Minister of Justice and the Interior, Salomé Pradas, who had called him at 7:10 p.m. and at 7:36 p.m. without him answering the phone, even though it was at home when the SE-Alert was being prepared.

Cuenca, who was out of town in Benigànim and Xàtiva on personal business, denied discussing the ES-Alert with Pradas. However, he explained that he became aware of the situation in the Plana de Utiel-Requena region at 3:00 PM, although severe flooding had been occurring in the area since 1:00 PM. He also stated that at 5:00 PM he suggested to the former regional minister that the Valencian president travel to Utiel after the Cecopio meeting, which he believed would be brief, but that the head of Emergency Services warned him that the area was inaccessible and that even the Military Emergency Unit was experiencing difficulties. It was then, between 5:00 PM and 5:10 PM, that he told Mazón that the situation in Utiel was worsening. Despite this news – six people died in Utiel – the head of the Valencian government stayed at El Ventorro until almost 7 p.m., then accompanied Vilaplana to the parking lot, didn't arrive at the Palau de la Generalitat until 8 p.m., and at the Cecopi (Provincial Coordination Center) until 8:28 p.m. When the judge asked if he knew about the president's lunch with Vilaplana, the high-ranking official said that he "knew who he was having lunch with." "I suggested this lunch, just as I did with three or four other possible candidates for the management of À Punt," he explained. "I arranged the lunch and knew who he was having lunch with and where he was; I had him located," he added. The high-ranking official described El Ventorro as the establishment where Mazón "holds lunches with Valencian and national media outlets and meetings of the Valencian Community's People's Party."

Without escort

José Manuel Cuenca also explained that Mazón "doesn't like having his bodyguard with him all the time." Although he didn't witness the events, he ventured a guess as to the reason for the withdrawal of the president's security detail: "They were supposed to be accompanying him, and then he must have told them that when he finished [the meal] he would go to the Palau. That's the usual procedure. Sometimes we've arrived near his house and he releases them," he noted. The high-ranking official also detailed that Mazón uses his "old" phone. "He's never had a second line," he explained.

The new information provided by Mazón's right-hand man leaves the question of the role of the head of the Consell's influence on Salomé Pradas's decisions unanswered. To try to clarify these doubts, the judge has summoned all of the president's closest collaborators, his bodyguards, and the driver as witnesses, and has requested the recordings from the Generalitat that show the PP politician's arrival at the Emergency Center, including the exact time. The judge argues that the investigation is "relevant" to analyze the former councilor's "decision-making process." In this regard, she emphasizes that the head of the Valencian government has "directive and coordinating" functions for all members of the Valencian government, as indicated by the Provincial Court of Valencia on October 16th, functions that "cannot be limited to those exercised in person, but must also extend to those exercised by telephone."