The former Minister of Justice and Interior and sole command of the emergency during October 29 (29-O) will provide the messages she exchanged with the then president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón and also with the person who was her chief of staff, Jose Manuel Cuencaaccording to sources close to the former councilor. Pradas' defense will announce to the court today that it will voluntarily provide in the coming days the messages it retains from 29-O with Mazón and Cuenca, as this newspaper has learned.
An announcement that comes one day after the Dana judge, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, head of Court of Instance 3 of Catarroja, asked the defense of former councilor Salomé Pradas if she wanted “contribute voluntarily to join the cause” lThe messages that he claims to keep from Dana Day, October 29, 2024.
As on Monday he told Levante-EMVthe former Minister of Justice and Interior Salomé Pradas, sole command of the emergency on October 29 (29-O) 2024 from 3 p.m., (when emergency level 2 was decreed due to the overflowing of the Magro River in Utiel, where six people died) has an ace up his sleeve in his judicial strategy. Pradas has been investigated in the dana case since March 10, 2025. She testified on April 11 before the dana judge, the Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra. That day he delivered to the court case a notarial record with the calls he made on October 29, but he did not say anything about the messages. And they have served as a compass to find out who she called and who she consulted outside the Cecopi (Integrated Operational Coordination Center, the brain of the emergency), where she was the highest authority.
Defense strategy
Although in the first television interview that she gave on Sunday to the program Salvados de La Sexta, since she was dismissed on November 22, 2024, Pradas revealed the ace up her sleeve that she has and that it is a warning to sailors to the former president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, who was disgraced by not having suspended his agenda and gone to the Cecopi. Mazón maintained his agenda throughout October 29 and, as is known, had a four-hour table and after-dinner conversation with the journalist and communicator Maribel Vilaplana. The head of the Consell did not appear at the L'Eliana Emergency Coordination Center until 8:28 p.m. on October 29.
Messages with Mazón and his hard core of advisors
The information that she handles as part of her defense strategy are the messages that she exchanged both with Carlos Mazón and with her hard core and with the rest of the members of the Consell or people outside the Cecopi with whom Salomé Pradas could exchange messages during the dramatic day of 29-0 that ended with the death of 229 people.
Message alert notification
At the beginning of his interview, Pradas explained that he tried to speak with Carlos Mazón shortly before 1:00 p.m. on October 29. “He didn't pick up the phone“, admitted the former councilor. So she decided to communicate the two alerts that Emergencies had just decreed “by messages.” These are the two hydrological alerts issued for the Magro River at 11:45 a.m. and the one for the Poyo ravine at 12:20 p.m., which were no longer withdrawn throughout October 29. Although the Presidency of the Generalitat during the Mazón stage tried to extend that the alerts “had been withdrawn.”
“The president is in action, inform me”
After Pradas informed Mazón of “the message alerts,” his chief of staff, Jose Manuel Cuenca, told the then Minister of Justice and the Interior: “The president is in action, inform me.” Pradas explained that, from then on, “I imagine that the information that I gave to the chief of staff reached Mazón. They knew that the Cecopi was convened, that The UME (Military Emergency Unit) was mobilized at 3:30 p.m. and? The situation in Utiel was very complicated“.
“Don't bother Mazón”
Pradas too has admitted that he sent her more messages: “I have not talked about WhatsApp in the investigation. They were very similar to the calls, which I have delivered. My interest was that they were informed. With the president the Last message was at two and a little in the afternoon. Around two in the afternoon, Cuenca (the chief of staff) tells me to write to him and not to bother Mazón.”
“I skipped the order because I am a nonconformist”
Still, he flouted the order, as Pradas admitted. “At 4:29 p.m. I called Mazón because I decided to inform him myself that the situation was serious in Utiel and I wanted to transfer it to my boss as a responsibility. “I skipped the order because I am non-conformist with what they propose to me.”
When I didn't catch him, “I don't know. I wasn't thinking. That's why I started calling his entire cabinet. He gave me my tone. But it got cancelled. He will have to explain that.”he justified. “I didn't send any more messages, because I got into Cecopi” (starting at 5 p.m.).
After learning this information, the Dana judge assures in an order notified yesterday to the parties that “in view of the fact that Mrs. Pradas has publicly stated that it is in possession of WhatsApp messages dated October 29, 2024, related to the dana and the facts that are the subject of this procedure, and that have not been contributed to the case, request it, through its procedural representation, so that, within a period of one day, it states whether it voluntarily contributes them to join the case.”
In the same ruling, the magistrate asks the regional secretary and chief of staff of Carlos Mazón, José Manuel Cuenca, that “given the agreement expressed by the witness in his statement of November 26, 2025, it is required that, within a period of 5 days, he provide the court with an invoice for his telephone, corresponding to October 29, 2024, so that the calls and messages that Mr. Cuenca received or made with Mrs. Pradas can be compared with said invoice by the lawyer of the administration of justice (LAJ) of the court, the Mr. Argüeso and Mr. Mazón on said day, stating in the comparison whether the calls or messages are incoming or outgoing and their duration.”
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