The prosecutor considered the poor, biased, vitimistic and offensive insinuation explanations that this process is due to the fact that he is part of a progressive government
The Spanish Supreme Court decided to send the former secretary of organization of PSOE Santos Cerdán to the pre-trial detention regime without bail for the alleged role in a bribery distribution scheme for alleged irregular awards of public works.
Judge Leopoldo Puente, who complied with the request of the Anti-Corruption Public Prosecution Service and the accusations, considered that the ‘former number three’ of the Spanish Workers Socialist Party (PSOE) may have committed crimes of integration in criminal organization, bribery and influence trafficking.
Cerdán today gave testimony before the magistrate since resigning and, in response to his lawyer’s questions, denied that he or PSOE received bribes payments, while considered the victim of political persecution for negotiating Pedro Sánchez’s investiture with the PNV and EH Bildu, and predicted that the next target will be Minister Félix Bolaños.
Prior to the decision, the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor said Cerdán is “the head of a criminal organization” who sought to enter Government ”with the help of former Minister Jose Luis Albalos and his former advisor Kolda García to manipulate public works.
“Santos Cerdán took corruption to the ministry,” Anti-Corruption Attorney General said Alejandro Luzón, who today asked Supreme Court magistrate Leopoldo Puente to decree the pre-trial detention without bail of Santos Cerdán, which would happen.
Luzón classified Cerdán as “head of a criminal organization” to “be able to enter government, nothing more than in the government with the highest budget of the government”, and pointed out that he did it with Kold and abbot to manipulate public works, making the works more expensive and impairing democratic institutions.
In his opinion, the former socialist leader is “the leader of the organization” he would have created in Navarre, together with Koldo and who later continued in Madrid with the former minister, so he attributed to him the “decisive role” in the plot above the other two.
Luzón stated that “the evidence of the crimes is evident,” as the audio recordings made by Koldo prove, with very expressive messages that give a “solid context” to the accusations and that have “a huge incriminating burden”.
The prosecutor justified the arrest request stating that there is a rational risk of escape, because the amounts received in these causes are often very high and cannot be limited to those obtained based on conversations.
For all this, Luzon argued that the destruction of proof sources, the severity of crimes at the initial moment, the ability to continue to communicate with other people, with the ability to alter evidence, condition witnesses and investigated make the adoption of this precautionary measure.
Popular accusations, whose legal direction is led by the Popular Party (PP), joined the prosecutor’s request and asked the magistrate to accuse him of the tax crime, due to the risk of prescription.
This is the first time that the prosecutor has requested in this supreme process the deprivation of liberty for one of the investigated, something that had not done neither with former Minister Jose Luis Abalas nor with his former advisor Koldo García.
For both, he requested the removal of the passport, the ban on leaving Spain and biweekly compliance with the Court, which was later agreed by the instructor magistrate.
Santos Cerdán, who appeared for a half and a half hour before the Supreme Court magistrate Leopoldo Puente, remained silent before the judge and prosecutor’s questions and only answered his lawyer, according to the sources.
PSOE’s former number 3 ‘denied having participated in the distribution of bribes on alleged irregular awards and presented itself as a victim of political hunt for negotiating the investiture of Pedro Sánchez with the PNV and EH-BILDU.
The prosecutor considered the poor, biased, vitimistic, and under the offensive insinuation that this process is due to the fact that he is part of a progressive government.
The judge, according to the Civil Guard thesis, appreciates evidence that Cerdán may have participated, along with former Minister and Koldo García, “in the perception of economic awards in exchange for irregular public works”, and he may “be in charge of distributing” the amounts collected.
