It all broke out in a Champions League match between Atlético de Madrid and Inter Milan on a Wednesday night. A prosecutor specialized in economic crimes was watching the meeting. It was surely one of his most relaxed moments – and tense due to the result of the match – of the week for him. They called him about a case of alleged tax crime that had not caught his attention. “It seemed to me to be a matter of not much substance,” said that prosecutor, Julián Salto, in his statement on the first day of the trial for case 20557/2024 in which the only accused is one of the highest authorities of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, attorney general.
His superiors interrupted his game with two calls from two prosecutors: Pilar Rodríguez, chief prosecutor of Madrid, and Almudena Lastra, senior prosecutor of Madrid. It is no coincidence that both gave him different instructions. The first urgently required information about the investigation of Alberto González Amador, who had been known to be the partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. He had not met that same day. What was happening is that Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (MAR), Ayuso's chief of staff, had begun to mount a political operation to attack the Prosecutor's Office and present the president of Madrid as the victim of a conspiracy designed in Moncloa.
Prosecutor Lastra did not agree with her subordinate. In fact, he told Salto not to hurry, because they could take care of the matter the next morning. Obviously, García Ortiz did not think the same and believed that the Prosecutor's Office should mobilize to defend his reputation. Waiting too long would be leaving the field clear to MAR. So they demanded the documents on the case from Salto. In a call, they tell him that “it has to be now, because the attorney general can't wait.”
The situation was uncomfortable for Salto. He was aware of the importance of maintaining confidentiality about his contacts with Amador's lawyer, who had offered to negotiate an agreement that would involve the recognition of two tax crimes. “I thought that neither Amador nor the president's chief of staff should have those emails,” Salto said at the trial. MAR could respond that those emails were very valuable ammunition for his boss and the PP in Madrid. And that's why he had claimed them from Amador.
The prosecutor reiterated that what appeared published in some media at the request of MAR was false. There were no “orders from above” (from the Government) so that there was no compliance, that is, an agreement between the prosecution and defense that inevitably involves recognizing that crimes have been committed, sometimes even just before the trial begins. “At no time am I told that there cannot be an agreement,” he explained. “It is a disinformation campaign that has been going on for 20 months.”
Pilar Rodríguez and Almudena Lastra participated in a separate duel that is not usually seen in trials. There are a few things in this hearing that are not often seen, and not just because of the identity of the defendant. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to say that they cordially detest each other, it's just that they have had to be in different fields. Lastra got angry that night because of the statement that García Ortiz wanted to publish to respond to the lies. Rodríguez declared that there was “no clandestinity” in those decisions.
The investigating judge of the case, Ángel Hurtado, intended to take this prosecutor to trial, so it is normal that she was cautious. It was the Supreme Court that rejected his accusation.
Amador's lawyer tried to pressure her: “Did Almudena Lastra say 'please, why have you passed them the emails (between the prosecutor and lawyer) that they are going to leak?” “No,” Rodriguez responded. “Conversations about leaks, I don't have them.” On the one hand, he let some awkward silences pass before answering the question. “It could be like that,” he sometimes responded. The lawyer pressed with somewhat confusing questions. Until the president caught him and asked him the question that lawyers do not want to hear: “What is the purpose of the question?”
With Almudena Lastra, everything was different. He did not stop talking and giving his opinion on matters that went beyond questions. But he had a very different attitude when elDiario.es gave the first news of the tax investigation into Ayuso's boyfriend. “About this, we are not going to give any news,” he told his press officer. Initially, in a contact with García Ortiz she was willing to deny the rumors that were beginning to spread: “We agreed that we had to go out and deny this.” But very soon he saw everything differently.
“I was stunned when (Salto) told me that he had sent them (the emails) to the attorney general,” Lastra said in her testimony. Rodríguez had said minutes before that when Lastra said she was sure they were going to leak the emails from the Attorney General's Office she was only making “an assumption.” That is, she had no proof of that, even if she was convinced. He told Salto the same thing: “I told him, please, they are going to filter them. Don't do anything. Go home.”
Lastra put a good cover in favor of González Amador's interests when he said that “many times lawyers go to the Prosecutor's Office without having spoken with their clients.” Amador had declared in the investigation of the case that he never gave his lawyer permission to recognize two tax crimes. Then he didn't fire him.
The top prosecutor in Madrid is clear that she was not in favor of giving so much information. “I don't think it's our role to reveal anyone's (defense) strategy.” That is just your opinion, maybe even qualified, but not a fact with which you can condemn someone.
Here there are many pending accounts between Lastra and García Ortiz and his team. The seconds were busy counterattacking. “What is happening is that we are seeing a questioning by the witness of the attorney general's policy,” said State Attorney Consuelo Castro, who acts as the attorney general's defender. The president of the court called his attention. That was a comment, not a question. “The animosity of the top prosecutor of Madrid (Lastra) for the attorney general and the previous attorney general was evident,” said prosecutor Diego Villafañe, who testified as a witness. We were done. There are many judicial trenches here that had gone unnoticed.
The witnesses did nothing but talk about the press release – since all parties asked them about it –, the note that the Prosecutor's Office released after García Ortiz insisted again and again. It is quite paradoxical because that public statement is outside of this trial. It is not part of the facts for which the attorney general could be convicted. Not even the instructor Hurtado considered that it could constitute a crime. There's a lot of talk about something that you can't get the attorney general's culpability in the leak. Is it to create the environment that could justify a conviction? Is there a lack of evidence to send the attorney general to prison? It is premature to have an answer. After all, no judgment is clear on the first day.