The Supreme Court has already formed the court that will judge the former Minister of Transportation, his former advisor Koldo García and the businessman Víctor de Aldama for the alleged payment of bribes in exchange for public contracts to purchase medical supplies during the pandemic. As is customary in the high court, there will be seven justices, with a balanced presence of progressives and conservatives.
These are the five magistrates who decided to prosecute Ábalos on November 7, 2024 —Andrés Martínez Arrieta, Eduardo de Porres, Andrés Palomo and Ana Ferrer—, plus two other magistrates: Julián Sánchez Melgar and Javier Hernández, in turn with greater and lesser seniority, respectively.
Martínez Arrieta, president of the Criminal Chamber, will also be in charge of heading the court and writing the future sentence, tasks that he already carried out in the recent trial of the then State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, who was finally convicted for revealing secrets.
Marchena and Ferrer were also part of that court and the one that judged the process. But while in the latter the conviction was unanimous, in the one that ended with García Ortiz disqualified, the former president of the Criminal Chamber sided with the majority ruling and Ferrer stood out, along with his partner Susana Polo, advocating for acquittal.
Along the same lines, Palomo, as a member of the Appeals Chamber that was in charge of reviewing the prosecution of the now former attorney general, defended in a dissenting vote that there were no reasons to seat García Ortiz on the bench. On the other hand, De Porres and former Attorney General Julián Sánchez Melgar – appointed by the Government of Mariano Rajoy – endorsed the decision to send the former head of the public ministry to trial. The stand will be completed by Hernández, a member of Judges for Democracy (JJpD).
which constitute a temperate court, will take over from Leopoldo Puente, a magistrate with progressive sensitivity who has investigated for a year the alleged rigging orchestrated by the Ábalos Ministry of Transportation to benefit companies linked to Aldama in public awards.
The instructor accuses them of alleged crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, influence peddling, bribery and embezzlement, to which the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and popular accusations add others: use of privileged information and falsification of official documents.
They face sentences of up to 30 years in prison
The prison requests for Ábalos and García reach up to 30 years. On the other hand, for Aldama the accusations concern only 7 years, thus evaluating his confession, which made it possible to uncover the alleged plot of illegal awarding of public works that is still being investigated by the high court.
Ábalos and his former advisor are already in provisional prison. They were admitted to the Soto del Real prison in Madrid on November 27, where they shared a cell until recently, according to legal sources consulted by EL PAÍS. However, this Thursday the Supreme Court is studying the appeals requesting his release. Aldama, on the other hand, awaits the oral hearing in freedom with precautionary measures – prohibition of leaving the country, withdrawal of passport and biweekly signature in court.
Once this procedure is completed, the case will go to trial. Legal sources indicate that the Supreme Court expected to hold it around February or March, but the calendar has been complicated due to the busy schedule of Ábalos’ new lawyer, Marino Turiel, who has already warned the court that those months are almost full.
The oral hearing will last several weeks, according to the sources consulted, who estimate “no less than a month” due to the string of witnesses requested by the parties – almost 40 by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office – among which stands out Carlos Moreno, chief of staff of the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero.
