After two weeks of sessions, this Thursday the trial against the State Attorney General was heard for sentencing, Alvaro Garcia Ortizfor an alleged crime of revealing secrets when he was accused of having leaked one of the emails that Alberto González Amador’s lawyerCarlos Neria, sent to prosecutor Julián Salto.
Members of the Public Ministry have passed through the room, journalistspoliticians and even members of the UCO, each to give their version of what happened in March 2024 and in the following months, leaving truths, doubts and some contradictions in view of the sentence that the seven judges of the Supreme Court must issue.
One of the most debated points in this case has been whether the attorney general was the first to get his hands on Neira’s email in which he was searching. an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office and in which he admitted the commission of two crimes against the Public Treasury of his client.
The statements of several journalists have been of great relevance in this matter, who have gone so far as to claim that they had this email for hours, or even a week beforefrom García Ortiz, who according to the evidence received it on March 13 at 9:59 p.m.
The first of them is José Precedo, deputy director of elDiario.eswho in his statement reported that he received a screenshot of this paper email a week before, March 6. Although he did not want to reveal his source, he did indicate that it was not the attorney general.
On March 12 at noon, the then deputy director of The Country, José Manuel Romero-Salazarreceived a call from “a reliable source” who told him the content of this email in response to the “hoaxes” that the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, was spouting, about the fact that it was the Prosecutor’s Office that had initiated the approach to achieve the agreement.
A few hours later, around 2:00 p.m., the Cadena Ser journalist, Miguel Ángel Campos Peñarrojareceived a call from one of his sources, whom he also did not want to name, and went to visit her in her office, where he let her see the entire email and, although he did not provide it to her, he did let her copy it.
In this way, there would be up to three journalists who would have had this email before García Ortiz. However, in their final reports, the private prosecution of González Amador wanted to cast doubt on these statements: “They are not obliged to answer the questions if they do not want to, so we must be more cautious than with other witnesses.” I only say it, because that means that the journalist is protected by his own right of defense and not self-incrimination. It is not possible to demand a truthful statement from them, so the statements of journalists should not be valued as normal testimony.”
The defense has also argued that this email was sent to a generic account of the Prosecutor’s Office, to which they have access “about 600 people” which “distorts the condition of exclusive secrets.”
Other conclusions can also be drawn from the journalists and they are whether this leak came from the Prosecutor’s Office of the Community of Madrid. Neither has revealed their sources, but Romero-Salazar did indicate in his interrogation that His “source of high solvency” was from the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office.
Added to this is the description of facts by the professional of the laser, who explained that the office he went to was located on a “third floor”. It coincides that the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office is located on the third floor of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid.
Added to this, García Ortiz himself declared that the chief prosecutor of the Community of Madrid, Almudena Lastrawas the first to have an interest in denying the words of Ayuso and her head of communication, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. This would put the focus on Lastra herself, but it has also made clear the differences between both institutions of the Public Ministry.
The attorney general himself explained that there is a “situation of disaffection” of Lastra against him. The statements between the two have been contrary and one of the main points has been an alleged conversation that both had by phone on March 13.
According to Lastra, she herself told him “You leaked it!” or “You have leaked it!”, referring to the aforementioned email, to which García Ortiz responded, “that doesn’t matter now.” However, the accused contradicted this version and during his interrogation he reported that he had never heard those words. He added that on top of that there is not such a close relationship between the two for him to address himself like this and “I doubt that a prosecutor in this country would address the state attorney general like this.”
The accusations have used these words and Lastra’s entire intervention as a weapon to substantiate García Ortiz’s guilt, although they have been contradicted by the accused, his communications chief, Mar Hedó, and the provincial prosecutor of Madrid, María Pilar Rodríguez Fernández. Along the same lines as Lastra was his press officer, Íñigo Corral, who after being asked if his office was on the third floor, said yes, but that it was not an office, “It’s more of a cabinwhere he does not receive journalists.”
Another of the arguments that the accusations have used has been that García Ortiz would have deleted all the data from his mobile phone on October 16, 2024, the same day that his accusation was known, which would be key evidence. that I had something to hide.
The attorney general defended himself by claiming that deletion is a regular and obligatory procedure, “not only because I exercise my free right to manage my terminal as I want, I delete everything because it is a legal impositionHe added that his device has “ultra-sensitive data” and information that “can affect the security of this country.”
In addition, he reported that the relevant messages in the case, which occurred between March 8 and 14, were already “They haven’t been on their phone for months.”since it performs a deletion almost every month.
Regarding these facts, there were also contradictions between the experts’ statements. On the one hand, the UCO agents who carried out the dump of this device indicated that “the fact that there is no previous information plus that information about the action, it can be determined that there has been a deletionFor their part, two engineers called by the defense stressed that it is not possible to determine with certainty either the date on which the messages were deleted or how many messages could be deleted.
From the defense and the Public Ministry, they have wanted to focus on the way in which the UCO and the investigating judge, Ángel Hurtado, acted, mainly on the entry and search carried out by the agents in the office of the state attorney general.
The State Attorney’s Office has directly requested the “nullity” of this action, considering it “disproportionate”. There was a specific order from the investigating magistrate, which was not complied with. It was cloned, cycled and copied without legal coverage and, therefore, that must mean the nullity of said procedure, because it was executed in terms that were not contemplated,” they have defended.
This is because the UCO agents who carried out this procedure carried out the registration “without really knowing what they were looking for”as they declared. Furthermore, the investigating judge indicated in the order that they should limit the data search between March 8 and October 30, 2024, which was not done.
According to one of the civil guards, it was due to which is “impossible” temporarily limit the data dump and the second of them argued that doing so would mean an unattainable amount of work that would take weeks.
In the experts’ turn to speak who signed the different UCO reports, the defense asked them why the rest of the people who had access to the leaked email were not also investigated, to which they responded that they “do not do prospective investigations”, causing laughter among the public, and adding that they only had to investigate the attorney general, who being “the highest authority” Within the Public Ministry, he had to be the person who gave the orders.
