The National Court awaits a key report from the Civil Guard to promote the fuel plot that splashes Víctor de Aldama. Both Judge Santiago Pedraz and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office confirm this in their latest statements in which they leave in the air a battery of proceedings requested by Hazte Oír – among them the summons of Koldo García – while waiting for the UCO to deliver its last letter.
This is clear from the documents, to which LA RAZÓN has had access, and which advocate waiting for the UCO to deliver its conclusions on the latest material provided to the case. These are messages that appear in the summary of the Koldo case and whose accession occurred at the request of Pedraz because they contain information relevant to these proceedings in which an alleged tax fraud exceeding 200 million euros of the hydrocarbon company Villafuel.
It should be remembered that Hazte Oír – which holds the legal direction of the popular accusations – asked the judge for a battery of testimonies to clarify how the operator’s license was granted to this company. Specifically, they demanded that Marc Ponsthen chief of staff of the former minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge Teresa Ribera, for the conversations held with Koldo García regarding the delivery of some documents from the Villafuel firm.
The Villafuel license
Likewise, they have requested the testimony of Juan Ignacio Díaz Bidart, who was chief of staff of the former Minister of Industry Reyes Maroto. Aldama put Bidart’s name in the spotlight by ensuring that he mediated for the Government to grant the license to the company. Claudio Rivas. Specifically, he pointed to a meeting at the Ministry that the interested party himself ended up recognizingalthough vaguely, when he testified as a witness in the branch of the Koldo case that is being followed in the Supreme Court.
It should be remembered that this meeting took place at the end of 2020 and Rivas, Carmen Pano (the businesswoman who two months previously brought 90,000 euros in bags to the Ferraz headquarters), and other officials participated. The same, which would have been closed thanks to the mediation of Koldo, had as its objective accelerate the granting of the operator’s title to Villafuel. In exchange for these efforts, Rivas and Aldama would have paid commissions to Koldo and, also, José Luis Ábalos would have benefited from the purchase of a villa in Cádiz that he would have used in the summer of 2021.
Hazte Oír explains in its writing that its statement “has an irreplaceable explanatory and clarifying value.” “Only through his appearance will it be possible to know if the intervention was due to a mere formal management of the cabinet – limited to the facilitation of administrative channels – or if, on the other hand, there was active mediation at the request of third parties that would constitute a privileged treatment regarding the processing of the Villafuel file,” they state.
Waiting for the UCO
Likewise, they consider it decisive that Koldo García testify to clarify what his mediation consisted of. “Specifically, it appears that Mr. García Izaguirre received a payment of 10,000.00 euros per month from Mr. Víctor de Aldama, in order to ‘open doors’ for him, including that of the Ministry of Industry, with which he agreed on that meeting and in which Koldo himself participated,” says Hazte Oír, which places him as “architect” of this meeting. Ultimately, they request that the two technicians who participated in the meeting held at the Ministry of Ecological Transition testify.
However, both the prosecutor in the case and the investigating judge prefer to wait for the conclusions of the Civil Guard before resolving Hazte Oír’s request. Anticorruption stated, specifically, that the report on all the material derived from the Koldo case is pending receipt and that, therefore, it is considered “premature” practice these procedures. The magistrate, for his part, also advocates waiting for the agents’ conclusions. After that, it will decide on the request.
It should be remembered that the procedure tightens the siege on José Luis Ábalos for his alleged shadow mediation so that the license was granted to the firm linked to Aldama. Although the magistrate initially declined to accuse him in the procedure, the last messages attached to the summary would confirm that he was compensated with a vacation home – which was purchased from a company linked to Carmen Pano – in exchange, facilitate the meeting to expedite the concession. Despite this meeting, Villafuel did not get the title he was looking for, which led to a great disagreement between Rivas with Aldama and Koldo.
Thus, the procedure is also pending attach the police reports on the dumping of the defendants’ phones. The focus is placed, especially, on the Aldama terminals, of Claudio Rivas and the businesswoman Carmen Pano. It should be remembered that the latter stated in her statement as investigated that Aldama traveled to the Canary Islands on several occasions to meet with the then regional president, Ángel Victor Torres. “They met with him with the intention of acquiring a fiscal warehouse, being able to be operational and unload the fuel they intended bring by boat from Venezuela to the Dominican Republic and finally to Spain,” said the businesswoman during her statement.