“You have to know the truth about everything everyone did that day. Me, at the bottom of the canyon.” The latest revelations from the former Minister of Justice and Interior, responsible for emergencies during the dana, put the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, on the ropes. Salomé Pradas, the main investigator in the case that addresses the death of 229 people during the dana of last October 29, has once again provided details about the development of the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center and the dialogue – or lack thereof – that she had with the president of the Generalitat.
The councilor, who maintains that she did what she could with the information she had, emphasizes that she contacted the president of the Generalitat Valenciana at moments of the meeting in which decisions were on the table that later turned out to be key for sending the alert. That Pradas called Mazón is nothing new, it is something that information such as those published by elDiario.es already pointed out in the days following the dana, and that is later confirmed with the information that the former councilor provided to the court already in March, where it can be seen that she was unable to contact the president on several occasions.
However, this Friday, when asked by elDiario.es, the minister points out that she called the president, the head of the Valencian Government, to inform him of Es-Alert at 7:10 p.m. “We were not going to talk about the weekend or the budgets, that moment coincides with the moment in which the ES-Alert is presented and debated,” argues the former councilor. The leader did not answer the phone and, according to his version, he must have already been at the Palau de la Generalitat following the alert, since he stated that he said goodbye to his diner at 6:45 p.m. Wherever he went, Mazón did not answer. Pradas insisted again without success at 7:36 p.m. and the president only returned his call at 7:43 p.m., 28 minutes before the mass alert was launched. They also contacted us at 8:10 p.m., one minute before they were sent. Meanwhile, the counselor called the Valencian president's team.
The time of the first of these unanswered calls coincides with the moment in which the possibility of sending the mass message to the province of Valencia is put on the table, already aware of the overflowing of the Poyo ravine. At 7:10 p.m., the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, intervenes at Cecopi to report that she has spoken with the mayor of Paiporta, who told her: “The people in my town are going to drown.” Pradas calls Mazón. Mazón does not respond. “Call cancelled” appears in the notarial document sent by Pradas to the case. Mazón omitted this in the list sent to the Corts; He has never admitted to having unanswered calls from the counselor.
The Catarroja judge investigates whether the 229 deaths occurred due to negligence on the part of the Generalitat Valenciana, with the focus on the late sending of the mass alert, which was debated for hours in the Emergency Center, in a meeting called in the afternoon when the Military Emergency Unit for Utiel was requested. Negligence due to action or omission. The judge, who has asked the Courts for the list of calls, justified this measure in that, as the Court highlights, Mazón “holds the status of highest authority of the Generalitat Valenciana and president of the Consell.”
Pradas insists that there is no change in his version: “We didn't wait for anyone. Nor was anything delayed,” he points out to questions from elDiario.es, and insists that he reported what was happening with the information he had, as proven by the calls he filed with the court. However, it is no less true that he tried to contact the president of the Generalitat on several occasions and that he did not answer the phone.
All these developments also reveal new lies from the head of the Consell who, in a recent interview in The Spanish He disassociated himself from the Es-Alert shipment, even going so far as to say that Pradas had nothing to do with its shipment. Asked if the former councilor informed him at any time about the sending of the Es-Alert, specifically in the 8:10 p.m. call, Mazón answered “no,” and added: “TI also know that a decision of this type is not a decision of the councilor herself. In the coordination body, they work jointly, assisting the operational experts. Nobody has yet told me what decision, what proposal, what instruction proposed by the technicians that the Emergency Minister ignored or refused to carry out.” Pradas, as counselor, held sole command, and therefore was the one who had the final say in making decisions within the meeting. Mazón said in that interview that the call to Pradas at 8:10 p.m. was to tell him that he was on his way to the Cecopi.
The Catarroja judge has focused on the calls from the Valencian president. For now, he has asked the Cortes to send the list deposited by the regional secretary of Transparency, which depends on the department headed by Mazón. The instructor frames the decision in the need to establish the “analysis in the decision-making process” in the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) and “in the specific analysis of sending the alert to the population.” Thus, “it is pertinent to study the calls that could have been exchanged” between former councilor Salomé Pradas, investigated in the case, and President Mazón, who has the status of authorized person.