The Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office has asked Judge Antonio Piña, instructor of the National Court, to reject the complaint filed by Hazte Oír against the former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whom the ultra-Catholic group accused of participating in a drug trafficking and money laundering plot thanks to his alleged links with Nicolás Maduro, former head of state of Venezuela. After receiving the complaint, the judge asked the public ministry for its opinion on January 8, which has ruled against initiating a case against the former leader of the PSOE, who remained imprisoned by the regime of the South American country. Antidrug considers that there is not the “slightest” evidence against Zapatero and that the complaint is based on “unfounded conjectures, assumptions and/or deductions lacking the slightest descriptive meaning or any factual support.”
The Prosecutor’s Office has made a move in just a few days, after receiving the request from the investigating judge Antonio Piña and the letter from Hazte Oír. In its complaint, the ultra-Catholic group – which maintains an intense offensive in the courts against the Government and the PSOE – accuses former President Zapatero of crimes of drug trafficking, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization, derived from his links with former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. A thesis that Antidrug rejects forcefully, as stated in a 10-page document, to which EL PAÍS had access. The judge will decide in the coming days what to do now.
After receiving the complaint from Hazte Oír, the magistrate opened proceedings (a necessary step to be able to decide whether to continue with the case or file it) and asked the Prosecutor’s Office for an opinion on the jurisdiction of the National Court. The ultra group maintains that Zapatero has maintained a “prolonged, direct and privileged relationship” with Maduro, captured by the United States accused of drug trafficking; that, therefore, there are alleged indications of “his active intervention in economic operations of high financial risk” and that, together with “his constant presence as a legitimizing figure of the regime, they form a relational network of extraordinary criminal severity.”
“From the existence of a formal accusation against Maduro, it cannot be deduced, in any way, the involvement of the defendant here in those drug trafficking activities that are described in a general way and always directed to US territory,” responds prosecutor Javier Redondo, who insists that Hazte Oír bases its entire accusation on the thesis that, since Zapatero knows the former Venezuelan president, “he would have become a co-author, collaborator or participant in the crimes of narcoterrorism and bleaching product of those.”
Anti-drug stresses that the ultra group accuses Zapatero of “integrating” the Cartel of the Suns, but that alleged group “is no longer even mentioned in the current formal accusation” of the United States as a “‘narcoterrorist’ organization,” […] but as a mere ‘clientelism system.'” “The complaint does not even explain in the slightest the specific role that the defendant would have played in the organization chart of the alleged organization, nor the alleged acts allegedly committed that fit into the broad typical description of the crime of drug trafficking,” attacks the Prosecutor’s Office, which says: “Everything it cites are not authentic facts that allow the slightest act of preparation, favoring or execution of a crime to be deduced.”
The blow to Hazte Oír is so harsh that, to reject its complaint, the public ministry highlights the “usual and successful” collaboration with the US authorities in the fight against drug trafficking: “Which allows us to affirm that, in the event of any indication of the commission by [Zapatero] of a drug trafficking crime, would have been communicated to us directly by [ellas]””A criminal case cannot be initiated for vague statements in journalistic information,” emphasizes the prosecutor.
“Regarding possible laundering, we reiterate that in no way are there any indications that the money or assets [de Zapatero y su familia] come from an activity related to drug trafficking,” continues the letter sent by Anti-Drug to the judge, who also sends a message to Judge Piña: “The prosecutor does not appreciate that the reported facts present minimal characteristics of a crime, as stated in the initiating order. [de diligencias previas]”.
