Leire Díez reiterates her complaint before the National Court (AN) for the blocking of her bank accounts in relation to her status as a defendant in the “SEPI case.”
The former PSOE militant assures that the measure prevents her from making any economic movement and, therefore, from meeting “the most basic expenses for her own subsistence.”
According to his defense arguments in a document sent to the Central Court of Instruction Number 5 of the AN, to which LA RAZÓN has had first access, there are up to eight blocked accounts that do not belong to Díez, but to his relatives or are even linked to third-party pensions.
Through her lawyer, Eva María Bejarano, she denounces that this “unjustified” blockade violates her fundamental rights as there is “no cause that justifies it, as it is unrelated to the facts that are the subject of this procedure.”
The former socialist militant’s lawyer also recalls that her client is not listed as co-owner or authorized in these accounts, and does not have any participation in these deposits.
He denies that he holds any position that would allow him to have any movement since last December. The moment in which the blockade was carried out, after his arrest and, later, provisional release with precautionary measures.
This professional journalist is being investigated for the alleged rigging of public aid from the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) and related state entities, in exchange for alleged illegal commissions.
For this reason, alleged crimes of embezzlement of public funds and influence peddling are attributed to him, since he would have participated – along with the former president of the SEPI Vicente Fernández Guerrero and the Navarrese businessman Antxon Alonso, owner of Servinabar and linked to Santos Cerdán – in a plot of rigging of a total of five public awards, which together would add up to a value of 123 million euros, in exchange for the collection of 731,000 euros in “bites” between 2021 and 2023.
The magistrate investigating the case in the AN, Santiago Pedraz, decided last week to prolong the judicial agony of the PSOE by extending, at least, one more month the secrecy of the summary to protect this investigation.
In the brief, Díez’s defense argues that the blocking of the accounts prevents both her and her closest family circle from attending to “their most basic expenses, such as food and the payment of consumption and supplies of the home in which they reside.”
However, it subsidiarily requests Judge Pedraz that, if the immediate lifting of the total blockage of the bank accounts is not agreed upon, a partial lifting of the same be carried out. And that in this way he is allowed to have a minimum financial amount (of “2,500 euros”) “to survive and be able to face the most basic day-to-day payments”, as well as “another initial amount of 5,000 euros to be able to face late payments.”
“A cursory reading of the accompanying receipts is enough to see that none of these accounts indicates any activity suspected of being criminal,” the letter states. The defense adds that the agreed precautionary measures have left their client and her family circle in a “situation of absolute helplessness, in which they cannot meet their basic needs.”
She details that these accounts show that the only income she draws on monthly is Díez’s payroll, her husband’s professional activity and the normal expenses of their family unit, such as the mortgage, consumption and supplies.
On the other hand, in order to maintain the protection of your privacy, you also convey to the investigating magistrate your concern that an expurgation of all the documents or information that is involved in the proceedings and that is from a time period different from that being analyzed (2021-2023) is carried out.
But he also wants “all personal, professional or any other type of information collected from the materials, documentation, information and electronic devices” of Díez and his family “that are not related to the facts investigated in the case” to be left out of the summary.
As another request to the court, her defense requests the “immediate return” of the cell phones, computers, iPad and other electronic devices that were seized by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard from both her and her husband in the four homes related to the former militant: one in Portugalete (Vizcaya), another in Vega de Pas (Cantabria) and two more in the Madrid municipality of Leganés and in the Las Tablas neighborhood.
Your appeal takes effect
LA RAZÓN has been able to confirm with sources familiar with the judicial procedure, which is still under summary secrecy, that Judge Santiago Pedraz has ordered the unblocking of some accounts in banking entities linked to Leire Díez, which belonged to his family circle.
But some, like one from the time her mother was president of her neighborhood community, remain suspended by court order. Or another also from a community of owners in which, she assures, she does not hold any position or responsibility, generating “the consequent damage” for the neighbors.