Ábalos is disconnected in the Supreme of the Water Amaño and claims not to recognize themselves in the audios | Spain

After several days threatening to pull the blanket, José Luis Ábalos has been limited this Monday in the Supreme Court to disconnect from the alleged Amaño of Public Works in exchange for commissions attributed to him the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. The former Minister of Transport has assured before the judge that he did not participate in the public award process and that, therefore, he could not manipulate them. Ábalos, according to sources in the case, has noted not to recognize himself in the audios allegedly recorded by his former advisor, Koldo García, collected in a recent UCO report that has uncovered the participation of the last secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, in the alleged plot of corruption that had its epicenter in the Ministry of Transport and has put against the ropes to the Government and the PSOE. Garcia, who was cited before Judge Leopoldo Puente after Ábalos, has received his right not to declare.

This Monday was the third appearance before the judge of the former minister and his former advisor. The instructor has called both after the UCO report that revealed the alleged involvement of Cerdán in the Amaño of Public Works Contracts in exchange for bites, before what Ábalos had slipped the possibility of pointing to the one who was his advisor and to which until last week he was the secretary of Organization of the PSOE. Finally, the former minister has limited himself to unchecking himself from any possible irregularity in public awards and in the rest of the facts that researchers attribute to him, such as his mediation to favor the rescue of Air Europa or so that Claudia M., a woman with whom the UCO link to Ábalos, was hired in Logirail, a subsidiary of Renfe.

Ábalos has made this decision after meeting this Sunday with Garcia and their lawyers to share their defense strategy. The appointment ended without an agreement and each one has opted for a path for this Monday’s statement: Ábalos has answered the questions of the judge, the prosecution and his lawyer, but, as he has done in his previous appearances before the judge, he has denied the facts and has assured that he also had no record of the involvement of García or Cerdán. For his part, his former advisor has accepted his right not to testify after the judge rejected the request recorded this Monday by his lawyer to delay the interrogation.

In this third appearance, Ábalos and Cerdán have faced for the first time the possibility of entering provisional prison, after the popular accusation, directed by the PP, claimed the imprisonment of both when considering that the indications included in the last report of the Civil Guard justified the entry of both in prison, a measure that has not been shared by the Prosecutor’s Office or by the judge. The instructor, on the line for what was requested by the Public Ministry, has decided to maintain the precautionary measures that already weigh on the former minister and the one who was his advisor (passport withdrawal, prohibition of leaving Spain and biweekly appearances in the Supreme).

During his statement, according to the sources consulted, Ábalos has assured that he never had the ability to influence the award of contracts of his ministry, so he could not love them to fall on certain companies in exchange for commissions. The former minister has also assured that he is not recognized in the audios intervened by the Civil Guard to Garcia in which this speaking of alleged bites with Cerdán and Ábalos is heard. In addition, he has noticed that he does not know if those audios can be manipulated because he, he says, nor is heard in the voice that is heard or remembers having such conversations.

During the interrogation he has also been asked about the rescue of Air Europa agreed by the Government during the Covid-19 pandemic and by the press release issued by his ministry a few days before and that, as the investigators have found, he was referred to the businessman and commissioner Víctor de Aldama. Ábalos has assured that he did not participate in the rescue or in the writing of the note or sent it to the entrepreneur.