José Luis Ábalos is already in the Supreme Court
The former Minister of Transport arrived, alone and by taxi, at the high court at 9:15, 45 minutes before the time set by the judge for his appearance. This Wednesday is Ábalos’s fourth appointment before Magistrate Leopoldo Puente, who called him after receiving a report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard on the financial situation of the former socialist leader. According to the judge, this document “deepens the evidence of criminality that already existed” in the case that the former minister and his former assistant “could have maintained non-transparent methods of communication between themselves” of their respective assets, “indiscriminately receiving irregular and opaque income from diverse sources, possibly the result of the commission” of the rigging of public contracts.
The instructor has already announced that, at the end of the appearance, a hearing will be held to study whether the precautionary measures that currently weigh on the former minister are changed (withdrawal of passport, prohibition of leaving Spain and appearances every 15 days in the Supreme Court), which could imply his entry into preventive detention. Ábalos arrives at this appointment, in addition, confronted with the one who until now has been his lawyer, José Aníbal Álvarez, who goes to court to assist the former minister by order of the judge after he rejected Ábalos’s resignation from his lawyer and the request that he be provided with one ex officio for the statement this Wednesday. The magistrate understands that this movement has been a trick by the former socialist leader to try to delay his appearance and the review of the precautionary measures and has urged him to go to Álvarez and appoint, within three days, a new lawyer.
The former minister has prepared his appearance this Wednesday alone, so its result is unpredictable. Ábalos can take advantage of his right not to testify or he can decide to answer the judge’s questions and the accusations. If he decides to answer, he will have to explain why, according to the Civil Guard, his former advisor kept large sums of money for him and paid him all kinds of expenses (trips and gifts for his partners or daily expenses for his children) without any trace of the then minister reimbursing them.
