Pilar Montes, secretary of the former president of the Generalitat Valenciana Carlos Mazón during the dana – the catastrophe that left 230 dead in 2024 in Valencia – has revealed that the former popular leader did not suspend his official agenda on the day of the tragedy until 8:00 p.m. Montes declared this Wednesday before the judge of Catarroja (Valencia) who is investigating the cold drop, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, as a witness, a condition that forces him to tell the truth.
In his speech, he revealed that on the afternoon of the misfortune he spoke with Mazón’s then chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca, who was “his immediate superior.” “We didn’t talk about the emergency. I went to Alicante because we had an event scheduled there the next day. […] When I talk to Cuenca at 8:00 p.m. or something, he tells me that he is on the road and that the agenda had to be canceled. [del expresidente]”, he pointed out.
When Cuenca gave the order to suspend Mazón’s official agenda, the Generalitat was finalizing the sending of Es Alert, the massive mobile alert to notify the population of the magnitude of the tragedy. A notification that arrived at 8:11 p.m., when at least 155 people had died.
Mazón was then arriving at Cecopi, the Generalitat body that coordinated the crisis in L’Eliana (Valencia) after having lunch for almost four hours at the El Ventorro restaurant with the journalist Maribel Vilaplana and walking for more than an hour through the center of Valencia with the informant.
Mazón’s former secretary, who has acknowledged that she made the reservation in El Ventorro, has said she “does not remember” the call that the former leader made to her on the day of the damage at 7:42 p.m., despite the fact that this communication appeared in the list provided by the former president in the Valencian Cortes and that it is already part of the case, after the instructor requested it. The list of calls provided by Mazón was a Word document, which did not specify whether the communications were incoming, outgoing or lost and had no legal value.
