“Mazón dinava i el poble s'ofegava”. It is one of the slogans of the first protest demonstrations against the catastrophic management of the dana. It was not a burst of populism, it was exactly like that. Carlos Mazón remained so calm on October 29, 2024 in El Ventorro, despite the fact that in Utiel the situation was so serious that the Military Emergency Unit (UME) had already been activated and the danger in the Forata dam. This has been confirmed by the person who shared a table and tablecloth with Mazón for more than three and a half hours: the communicator Maribel Vilaplana, a witness before the judge of the dana and the private and popular accusations (neither the prosecutor nor the defenses of the two investigated have raised questions). Vilaplana entered the Catarroja Courthouse escorted by two people she trusted and by agents of the Civil Guard, in front of dozens of television cameras and photographers and the son of a deceased woman in the dana, who greeted her with shouts. He did so just when Mazón began his appearance at the Palau de la Generalitat to announce a kind of delayed resignation. In fact, the lawyer from Ciudadanos, a party represented as a popular accusation, informed him towards the end of the interrogation that the other diner at El Ventorro had made his resignation effective. The destinies of both were hopelessly linked in that inopportune agape.
The investigating judge, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, reminded the witness that the “only responsibility for being there until that time” belonged to the person who had invited her to eat. The journalist, a Channel 9 veteran, assured that she maintains “neither friendship nor enmity” with Carlos Mazón and recounted the latest conversations between the two. After the controversial meal, at dawn, the president called her, just as she had asked him before falling asleep. Vilaplana asked him if he knew what was happening outside the restaurant while they were tasting El Ventorro's dishes. Mazón told him that he did not know (“How would I know that?”). The conversation must have been tense: the president had already been at the L'Eliana Emergency Center for a few hours and had grasped the seriousness of the situation, with numerous deaths. “This is very serious, it is very serious,” he told him. The journalist explicitly asked her not to make her name public.
One or two days later – with Valencian society completely shaken by the magnitude of the catastrophe, the still unknown number of dead and missing and the suspected actions of the regional Executive – Carlos Mazón called Maribel Vilaplana: he told her that “he was very sorry”, that “he was under a lot of pressure” and warned her that “sooner or later” her name would have to come to the fore. “He only called me to apologize and to tell me that he had to say it and that it was better that we cut off all contact,” he declared before the judge.
Before the Presidency of the Generalitat leaked his name, Vilaplana was interviewed on November 4, 2024 in the newspaper As as spokesperson for Levante UD, the club of which she is an advisor, to explain the team's mobilization frog to get help for areas affected by dana.
When, shortly after, Mazón confessed that he had eaten with her, he suffered a veritable lynching on social media, as he recounted in June in a content video sponsored by an appliance brand in which a guest comes to prepare a stew with a cook (an Alcoyan borreta, in the case of Vilaplana).
As a result of the digital lynching, he had a panic attack and deleted all messages with the president and even his phone number, according to what he told the judge.
The details of the three and a half hours
His testimony also provided some details about the meal at El Ventorro: that it was in a booth, that they drank a bottle of wine without a glass afterwards, that the president took off the jacket he was wearing that morning and put on a sweater; that the owner brought him an envelope with some papers that Mazón signed “several times” (he did not remember if they had any anagrams) and that the table was “very big.” These are juicy details – enigmatic, in the case of the envelope – for the films and plays currently being prepared about the management of the Dana catastrophe.
However, the statement did not provide anything about Mazón's calls with the then councilor Salomé Pradas, currently being investigated in the case. It is one of the big questions that the second section of the Provincial Court of Valencia asked to be cleared up with the journalist's statement (despite the fact that the judge had avoided that possibility at all costs due to Carlos Mazón's status as a certified person).
Maribel Vilaplana did not remember the “sound” of the president's phone. He only said that, from a certain point on, he began to receive “many calls,” although he did not hear anything that was said. The regional leader made gestures to him, as if wanting to tell him that it would be over soon and they would resume the agape. He never heard words like “dana”, “Cecopi” or “rains” from Mazón's mouth.
The witness described the meeting as a purely professional meeting and assured that Mazón asked her if she wanted to return to public television as a “position.” She, as she stated, hid behind the fact that “the closure of Channel 9 was a drama,” in reference to the decision of Alberto Fabra's Executive in 2013, which meant that workers like Vilaplana remained unemployed.
The communicator explained that, after the proposal was rejected, the meal became a kind of informal communication consulting session, similar to the courses she usually teaches for companies or institutions. “Working for a political party is shooting yourself in the foot,” she thought when faced with these types of proposals from a regional president who intended to get his hands on À Punt.
“Eating quietly” in El Ventorro
After answering each call, the meal “continued as normal.” “Most of the time we are eating quietly,” he added. The president also wrote WhatsApp or SMS messages, he added without being able to specify what type of application it was.
Vilaplana provided a somewhat cryptic detail: after one of the calls, Mazón said: “It's the same as always, it's the photo.” It was not clear what the president could be referring to (perhaps a photo at the Emergency Center?). The journalist, in any case, interpreted it as referring to a photo of some type of “event.”
When, after snack time, the president put an end to the long meeting, she made a “motion” to pay her part of the bill. Mazón told him: “That's it.” The witness did not clarify how the president would have paid the account, if he did so at that time.
The quiet walk to the parking lot
Once they left the establishment, they walked calmly towards the entrance to the parking lot located in the Plaza de Tetuán, in front of the Bancaja Foundation. The head of the Consell remained oblivious to what was happening at the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) in l'Eliana, which was not exactly reassuring. On the contrary, he strolled calmly through the pleasant streets that lead from the restaurant to the parking lot, as if the EMU had not been activated for hours.
Vilaplana did not notice that Mazón was escorted by his security team. She strongly insisted that he go to a Levante UD match, to score “a point” with the club for which he is the spokesperson. At that time, public television broadcast live tremendous images of the overflowing of the head of the Poyo ravine. In the Horta Sud region, just a few kilometers away from the city, there were already dozens and dozens of deaths. Hundreds (if not thousands) of citizens were trapped in their vehicles, on ground floors or in the street.
The witness clarified that she went down to the parking lot alone and that she did not know where Carlos Mazón went. He also said that, once in the car, he took the opportunity to answer WhatsApp messages. Vilaplana could not obtain the parking ticket, as the investigating magistrate had previously requested. Yes, he gave the license plate number of his vehicle to the Attorney of the Administration of Justice so that the company that manages the parking can be requested to know the time in which the ticket was paid. The receipt could shed light on the time when Mazón said goodbye to Vilaplana.
New candidates to testify as witnesses
Maribel Vilaplana's testimony opens a scenario that could involve the statement of the senior officials of the Palau de la Generalitat who spoke by telephone with Salomé Pradas: the chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca, and the regional secretary of the Presidency, Cayetano García Ramírez, who are part of the Presidency 'politburo', practically dismantled after the resignation. This has been requested by the popular accusations carried out by Compromís and the PSPV-PSOE.
Cayetano García Ramírez was the one who spoke the longest on the phone with Pradas that afternoon, specifically between 4:11 p.m. and 8:24 p.m. (five minutes and 33 seconds in total). Cuenca or García Ramírez could prove what the Presidency knew or why Pradas always turned to them when he could not directly contact the head of the Consell at the key moments of the emergency of the dana, precisely while Mazón served more as stroller that as president of an autonomous Executive that had been entrusted by law with the mission of determining self-protection measures for the population.
The scenario of the testimony for the owner of Ventorro would be more forced: one of the lawyers of the accusations asked Maribel Vilaplana if the restaurateur could have knowledge of what Mazón spoke on the phone. “The poor man has enough too, he just told us what we were going to eat and left. I doubt he heard anything, if I didn't do it, how was he going to do it,” said Vilaplana.
The key to improper omission
The second section of the Valencia Court, in one of the most decisive decisions for the case, gave support on October 23 to the investigating judge to investigate the unusual meal at El Ventorro, despite the capacity of one of the two participants. The status of a certified person, the speaker (Judge José Manuel Ortega) was saying, cannot prevent facts as relevant to the case as the communications between Councilor Salomé Pradas and the head of the Consell from being clarified.
However, the order also alluded to possible indications that could emerge regarding Mazón's actions and “what was done—by improper action or omission—by the President of the Generalitat on the afternoon of October 29, 2024.” The detail highlighted between dashes was very important: “By improper action or omission.” It can determine the entire future of the criminal procedure instructed by the Catarroja judge.
The second section, unanimously by its six magistrates, asked whether there could be found “indications that there was any efficient participation in the making of decisions – or in the omission of the same – within the Cecopi by the person holding the Single Command (Salomé Pradas) and, in particular, in those whose adoption or omission could be causally linked, in the terms required by criminal imprudence, with the cause of the deaths and injuries. investigated.”
Maribel Vilaplana, a privileged witness of the more than three and a half hour meal at El Ventorro with Carlos Mazón, repeated it several times: “At no time did I perceive concern, if I had seen him I would have asked him.”