Accusations and defenses disagree in their assessments of the trial of the State Attorney General after a week of oral hearing (which is scheduled to conclude this Thursday). While sources from Álvaro García Ortiz’s defense maintain that there is still “no evidence” against him, the accusations consulted by LA RAZÓN are optimistic and believe that the testimonies heard in the courtroom prove the evidence that led him to the bench for the alleged leak of confidential data of businessman Alberto González Amador, boyfriend of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “If now I had to bet all my savings on a bet, it would be that he would be sentenced,” sources point out in an accusation.
Quite the contrary, sources from García Ortiz’s defense completely disagree with these assessments. “It is a trial in which so far there is not a single piece of evidence”they point out before emphasizing that it is being proven in the room that “there is an explanation for everything” for the behavior of the attorney general, which the accusations consider criminal.
According to these same sources, “although there had been no testimony from journalists, including that of Esteban Urreiztieta, there is no proof» against him.
Lastra’s “animosity”
And as for the testimony of Almudena Lastra, “which some consider to be a charge,” they highlight, “it only confirms his animosity towards the attorney general of the State” (which if so appreciated, the court would lead it to not take into consideration his testimony to dictate its sentence). “But proof, none,” they reiterate.
The popular accusations They consider that the testimonies of the witnesses who have appeared before the court so far reinforce the evidence against the State Attorney General, whom they continue to point out as the author of the leak of Alberto González Amador’s confession on the night of March 13 of last year. After the halfway point of the oral hearing, there are no plans to modify their provisional conclusions, which contemplate sentences of four to six years in prison and up to twelve years of disqualification.
Fernando García Capelo, lawyerFreedom and Alternative Forum Foundationassures that the trial has gone so far “more or less as we expected” and is “quite satisfied” with how it has developed since he considers that “in general terms it has been a positive week for the accusations.” And the lawyer maintains that “the unjustified intervention, and with unusual urgency, of the attorney general to obtain some emails that are later leaked has been proven.”
The lawyer for the popular accusation – which also brings together Vox and Hazte Oír – also points out “other indications that point to the responsibility of the attorney general”: that he urged the prosecutor Julián Salto to send him the emails through the provincial chief prosecutor Pilar Rodríguez, “after telling Almudena Lastra (senior prosecutor of Madrid) that it was not urgent” and that “he himself participated quickly in drafting the Prosecutor’s Office note and write it” (together with his press chief). A behavior that he sees as “inexplicable if there is no coordination that responds to a political maneuver.”
“Reinforces the signs”
In that same line, the lawyer of Clean Hands, Víctor Soriano, states that “we are in a situation very similar to how we closed the investigation.” And he highlights, after listening to the “very interesting” testimonies of the former leader of the PSOE of Madrid Juan Lobato, of whom Pilar Sánchez Acera was an advisor to Moncloa and of Almudena Lastra herself, among others, that “we have a set of clear indications against which there is no testimony that dismantles them.”
Soriano believes that the statement of the two journalists who stated that they had access to the email before the leak that is attributed to the attorney general occurred “is not credible.” “It is not credible that a journalist has such relevant news and remains silent for days,” he emphasizes. And in any case, he emphasizes, “it does not serve to rule out that the leak did not come from the attorney general.” “On the contrary,” he adds, “it reinforces the evidence we already have.”
For the Manos Cleans lawyer, the defense of García Ortiz – who formally exercises the State Attorney’s Officebut in which the Prosecutor’s Office also works hard, asking for his acquittal – “the defense is solely focused on trying to prove that more people than the attorney general knew about the email prior to him.” And he clarifies in this regard that “although Precedo (the Eldiario.es journalist who stated before the court that he had the controversial email in his hand since March 6) had it a week before, that was not revealed.” But the key fact, he maintains, is that after the publication of its content by the Ser chain, “the email reaches Pilar Sánchez Acera, who is the one who distributes it.”
“Absolutely implausible” testimonies
His colleague from the Freedom and Alternative Forum agrees that “contraindications have very little credibility” and in relation to the statements of the two journalists who defend that they previously knew the content of the email for whose leak García Ortiz is being tried, García Ortiz describes them as “absolutely implausible” since according to García Capelo “they suffer from a lack of credibility.”
In any case, he adds in this regard, “even if they had access to the email, the jurisprudence applies when it is available for publication, but not when they are not authorized to publish it.” “Even in that hypothetical case, this fact would not dismantle the evidence, given the accumulation of evidence that exists and that is seen to be revealed with the UCO reports.”
From what has been seen and heard so far in the courtroom, the popular accusation has “no intention” of modifying its conclusions (Foro Libertad y Alternativa requests a sentence of four years in prison for revealing secrets). García Capelo questions the approach of the State Attorney’s Office by complaining that the intervention of the attorney general’s motive sought to strengthen his guilt. “It is an objective action that is only incriminating if you are guilty,” he maintains, which is why he thinks that “that complaint is almost self-incrimination”.
“Very weak exculpatory evidence”
The Manos Cleans lawyer also considers “the exculpatory evidence to be very weak.” Something that Soriano believes “could have changed” if the journalists who testified “had been more eloquent” or if Sánchez Acera “had explained what happened that morning” of March 14, when the then Moncloa advisor instigated Juan Lobato to use the email of González Amador’s confession in the Assembly against Ayuso, of which he sent him a “screen shot.”
“If during the investigation he was not very credible, at trial he could not have been less credible. He came on the defensive. No one can think that what he said was true. His credibility is completely in question, so that testimony has no value,” he states.
For the lawyer for the popular accusation, Sánchez Acera “was not able to explain why a journalist would send that information to her instead of making it public. It makes no sense.” In her opinion, this fact “can only be explained in one way: she received the email from someone she cannot identify because it would be revealing the crime.”
The complaints of alleged violations of fundamental rights of García Ortiz by the Supreme Court – which his defense explained in detail in the processing of previous issues – have not convinced the accusations either. “It is evident that there has been no violation of fundamental rights nor has any defenselessness been generated because the secrecy of the proceedings lasted eight days in an investigation that has lasted months,” points out García Capelo. In this regard, it also highlights that García Ortiz’s defense and the Prosecutor’s Office itself “have left several resolutions without appeal” throughout the investigation. “Everything they say regarding procedures that the instructor has not admitted is surprising,” he emphasizes. “The Forum has not admitted a lot of procedures to us…”.
“They are preparing the appeal for protection”
Regarding these complaints from the defense about alleged violations of fundamental rights, the Manos Cleans lawyer believes that The defense “considers lost” the trial “and entrusts everything to the Constitutional Court”. “The feeling I get is that they are preparing the appeal for protection more,” he adds. “The defense is more concerned with justifying itself in the media,” sources assess another of the popular accusations.
The lawyer from Foro Libertad y Alternativa endorses the actions of the president of the court, Judge Andrés Martínez Arrieta, who in his opinion “is being very guaranteeing, even very permissive with the defenses in the face of the repetition of their questions, but it seems fine to me.” “It is the elite of the judiciary,” he adds.
Along the same lines, Soriano understands that the court “is behaving very evenhandedly”, “guaranteeing the right of defense by allowing the defense to reiterate questions and ask some that have no relation to the procedure.”
Sources of other accusations abound in the perception from the courts that, after a week of trial, the State Attorney’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office “are worse” than before the beginning of the oral hearing. “Everything remains the same as in the investigation. The journalists’ testimony is not credible,” they reiterate along the lines of their colleagues. “If the press chief of the Prosecutor’s Office has the accounting on March 7, it is impossible for a journalist to have the email on the 6th,” they point out.
“Betting” on a conviction
These same sources draw attention to the fact that Mar Hedo’s testimony, according to which García Ortiz knew on October 12 of last year (four days before the Supreme Court made it public) that he was going to be investigated for revealing secrets, “supposes attributing a leak to the Admission Chamber of the Supreme Court”, something that according to what they point out has not gone down well within the court. “They don’t realize that as judges of the Supreme Court they confirm a reviewable permanent prison or 20 years in prison and they go to sleep so peacefully. They are used to it,” they point out.
And regarding the statements of Sánchez Acera and the journalists, he highlights that “coincidentally all those who can exonerate the attorney general either take advantage of professional secrecy or have deleted their cell phone” (as did Moncloa’s former advisor).
“If I had to put all my savings into a bet now, I would be sentenced,” they emphasize, convinced that next week, when the agents who prepared the key reports that brought García Ortiz to the bench testify, the evidence against him will be “reinforced.” “The atmosphere between the accusations is very optimistic”they stand out.