The PSOE has its last secretary of Organization in prison since the early afternoon of this Monday. The judge of the Supreme Court Leopold Puente ordered that Santos Cerdán enter the jail to conjure the risk of destruction of evidence after listening to it for two hours, although both the request of the Chief Prosecutor of Anti -Corruption, Alejandro Luzón, as the magistrate's car, nourish arguments prior to his statement, at least in the main block of the car.
The judge considers in the prison order that there are “notable indications” that Cerdán is the leader of a plot of corruption that allegedly a public works in exchange for bites, of which for the moment there are only allusions of its protagonists, in the absence of money. The judge attributes to who was number 3 of the PSOE the crimes of criminal organization, influence peddling and bribery.
Ten days ago, the judge rejected the request of the popular accusation of registering the house of Santos Cerdán to find those possible evidence that now tries to preserve with the imprisonment of Cerdán and that according to the car would be at risk if the politician remained free. The judge then argued that ordering the records at the domicile of Cerdán would not be a “useful” measure because it was “several days” that they knew they were investigating him.
In the absence of knowing if the Central Operating Unit (UCO) has made advances in the analysis of the audios and documentation seized to Koldo García, José Luis Ábalos or the imputed entrepreneurs, nothing formally incorporated into the cause, which is not under secret, has changed since then.
The law establishes three reasons to agree on the most taxing precautionary measure of how many can be agreed against an investigation: avoid criminal repetition, destruction of evidence or fled. Although with some nuances, the bridge judge only attends as a solid assumption of the destruction of evidence to decide the imprisonment.
The magistrate, who usually expands himself in the argument of his decisions, strives to “explain fully” why the risk of destruction of evidence concurs in the case of Santos Cerdán and not in those of José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García, who appeared before the supreme last week and continue to free.
In the case of the former minister and his advisor the popular accusation, which led the PP, requested the prison, but anti -corruption did not support it and the judge ruled out applying the measure. The former minister only answered some questions to the judge and the prosecutor to deny any responsibility. Koldo García refused to answer any issue. Both clear the rumors about a hypothetical collaboration with justice to achieve benefits in exchange for pointing to Cerdán.
The judge explains that, unlike García and Ábalos, against Cerdán “the indispensable investigation of his true patrimonial situation has not yet been practiced.” Nor, the magistrate states, the address could be registered when it would really have been effective, before giving up his status as a deputy who entailed the aforementation.
Ábalos and García have been intervened by telephone and computer devices and their heritage research is “very advanced.” However, Cerdán can “hide, alter or destroy relevant test elements in this procedure,” abounds the magistrate. The UCO has the judge's mandate to investigate its accounts and bank products, as well as its real estate or vehicles. The content of their corporate mail of the PSOE is also held by agents, where the judge suspects that he could send or receive “certain relevant communications.”
In his brief, the instructor attributes to Cerdán a “privileged knowledge” of the plot. He awarded the role of intermediary with corrupt companies, mainly acts, an exact knowledge of each adjudication and distribution of the bites with the rest of the members of the alleged criminal organization, also formed by third parties that the judge does not yet identify. The judge adds that the relationship with Ábalos and García was “vertical”, from Cerdán down.
At this point, the judge dares to make a calculation of the cast that, today, does not exceed the concept of mere “hypothesis”, but which serves to obtain a figure that imputes as illegally obtained to Cerdán. The judge that acts was, in the period investigated, awarded works for more than 537 million euros. According to the conversations, Ábalos and Koldo García would have received 550,000 euros and would be aware of obtaining another 450,000, one million euros of bites in total. Only 1% of the award, develops the judge, would leave four million euros without distributing, which could have obtained Cerdán, LEOPOLDO PUENTE hints.
Audios reliability
With the intention of arguing the seriousness of the measure of the prison, the judge dedicates much of his car to display the indications against Santos Cerdán, already collected in the UCO report. At this point it makes a correlation between the analysis of the works under suspicion, exhibited by the Civil Guard, and the audios seized to Koldo García, to which he attributes truthfulness.
“It is not noticed, in short, any reason, always in the indiciaries that are typical of this moment of the investigation, to question that the aforementioned recordings correspond to conversations effectively produced,” writes the judge. And he adds that his “content results in extreme eloquent – both that in one of them Don Santos himself reproaches Don Koldo with insistence that these issues are not spoken of, they are written on paper and breaks” -.
In the opinion of the magistrate, Cerdán did not question during his Monday statement “unequivocally” his content but reduced that “he does not remember having maintained that kind of conversations, that they would not be complete or that they would appear, in general, decontextualized terms.”
Cerdán, “victimist”
Prosecutor Luzón went to the statement with his arguments to request the prison already written, although he improvised the response to some of the considerations made by the investigated during the session. At this point, he considered “poor”, “segadas” and even “victimists” the explanations of former number three of the PSOE, especially those who appeal to the fact that the imputation responds to his outstanding political role in the achievement of progressive governments.
Luzón defended that there is a relevant “incriminating burden” in the investigation against Cerdán and that there are indications that he has committed several crimes that exceed two years of conviction, to support the risk of escape. At one point, the prosecutor has appealed to the thesis that, within the plot, it was Santos Cerdán who brought Navarra's corruption to the Ministry of Transport.
The audios offer, according to the prosecutor, “a solid context” and, within them, the messages exchanged between the former Secretary of Organization of the Socialists and Koldo García are “expressive.” Cerdán's role in the plot is “decisive,” apostilled the prosecutor's chief anti -corruption. According to Luzón, Cerdán could influence witnesses and investigated if he was released and a certain risk of escape was attended.
