“What I maintain is that I am innocent and that I have not done anything that the UCO says,” says Santos Cerdán, former secretary of the PSOE organization. Who was a strong man of the party has granted his first interview since he was sent to provisional prison while investigating the possible case of corruption that surrounds the PSOE. He has done it with the avant -gardewith a questionnaire through their lawyers, and denying their participation in a plot where it appears as the main investigated.
Cerdán doubts in the interview the bases of the investigation and refers to the photographs of his first days in prison that leaked to some media. “There is no doubt that there is a media objective to see me inside and with it to damage the image of the party and the government,” says the Navarrese politician. “I want the instruction to end and demonstrate my innocence. I do not make short -term approaches,” he says about his release, denied by the judge.
Former number three of the PSOE, until the outbreak of the case, tries to disconnect from the activity of Koldo García, another of the investigated, in the ministry directed by José Luis Ábalos, the third accused politician. “I had put it as a driver (from Ábalos), from there there was a relationship between them, I don't know anymore,” he says. He says he did not know whether García and Ábalos asked for money in exchange for awards or why he placed Garcia as an advisor to the Ministry of Renfe. “I proposed it as a driver, nothing to do with the other destinations and occupations. The driver's role is well defined,” he says.
One of the bases of the investigation they have given with Cerdán in prison were the recordings seized to Garcia. Recordings that he does not recognize. “I do not recognize the conversations or this context has existed with Koldo or Ábalos,” he says. “These conversations have not existed and we do not recognize these audios,” he says. “It does not sound good that (Koldo) will even record his intimacy, it is suspicious. And if he says he did not record, I want to know who or how these audios have been generated.”
About Antxon Alonso, the main entrepreneur involved in the plot, Cerdán says he began in 2015 his relationship with him when the PSN obtained the worst results of the story and had doubts about his continuity in politics. “I resigned from the project after a few days after talking to my family,” he defends.
“I am very sorry for the damage that has been done to the Socialist Party but more that has been done to me and is doing to me. If I had not been secretary of the organization I would not have seen me in this,” he says in the interview, affecting the alleged political motivations of the cause. “I am innocent and I fully trust to demonstrate it. The assessments of third parties will already judge them time, but with what Pedro knows me I thought that I would be clear,” he says about Sánchez's words in which he was recognized disappointed with Cerdán.
And he concludes: “If everything clarifies I want to live quietly with my family, turn page and never return to politics”
