The Provincial Court of Badajoz has rejected this Monday the request of David Sánchez, brother of the President of the Government, to testify again in the trial after PP, Vox and four others last Thursday. At the beginning of the session, Emilio Cortés, lawyer for Pedro Sánchez’s family member, explained that last week he did not ask his client about the process of awarding the position of coordinator of activities of the provincial conservatories, considering that Now, however, after the turnaround experienced last Thursday, he has proposed that he be allowed to question his client again to ask him about this point. After a five-minute recess, the court rejected the defense’s request, considering that, since there was no substantial change in the facts being judged, it was not pertinent to authorize a new interrogation.
David Sánchez’s defense surprised everyone on Thursday by not asking his client about one of the facts for which he is being tried, that of the awarding of the plaza in 2017. Sánchez’s brother only responded to his lawyer’s questions and since he did not ask him any questions on this point, he did not give his version of the events. The defender then justified his not asking questions about his hiring by saying that, after the court at the beginning of the hearing had withdrawn one of the charges by statute of limitations—the lightest one, that of accepting an illegal appointment, punishable by a fine—he considered that the rest of the crimes that the popular accusations accused him of for that specific fact (influence peddling and administrative prevarication) were also statute-barred. The court said nothing about it.
After the court’s refusal, a new statement by Sánchez, its president, Judge José Antonio Patrocinio, has given way to the accusations to present their final reports, which will be followed by the Prosecutor’s Office and the defenses. The first to speak was José María Bueno, lawyer for the pseudo-union Manos Liminas, who filed the complaint that led to the opening of the case and which is the only accusation that maintains the initial three-year petition for David Sánchez. During his presentation, the lawyer insisted that the position that the president’s brother finally occupied was created “arbitrarily” by a “political decision” for which he held the former leader of the PSOE in Extremadura and then president of the public body, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, responsible. Bueno has stated that the entire selection process “was a farce” in which the interviews with the candidates “were a paripé” that had the objective of giving “a touch of legality” to the hiring of David Sánchez.
The second to take the floor has been the ultra-Catholic association Hazte Oír, which like five other popular accusations, has increased its requests for punishment and demands six years in prison for David Sánchez for alleged irregularities in the creation and adjudication in 2017, for the change in the nomenclature of the position in 2022 and for the hiring in 2023 of Luis Carrero, a friend of the brother of the President of the Government. Lawyer Javier Pérez-Roldán has dedicated part of his intervention to the request of David Sánchez’s defense to testify again this Monday. “He understood that [el delito de aceptación de nombramiento ilegal] It was not going to be judged. We cannot share that thesis,” he said. Thus, he has insisted on maintaining his accusation by considering that in the Badajoz Provincial Council “a position was created for a brother and to the measure of a brother.” “And creating a position to measure is already prevarication,” he added, and then regretted that the Prosecutor’s Office requested the acquittal of all the accused.
Lawyer Poland Castellano, from Christian Lawyers, has expressed along the same lines, who has insisted on half a dozen occasions on . “The UCO report cannot have the same value.” [Unidad Central Operativa] “that the statements of people with the PSOE card who work for the deputation”, she stressed in reference to the testimony of a dozen officials of this organization who during the hearing have rejected that there had been irregularities in the hiring process of David Sánchez. Castellano has assured that in his statement, the president’s brother fell into “obvious” contradictions about his functions and the work really necessary. The lawyer has also focused on the role of Gallardo, whose role in the alleged irregularities has branded as “determining”.
Marta Castro, from Vox, has also highlighted the UCO document in which the emails of the accused and other officials of the council were analyzed as a “fundamental” piece to request the conviction of David Sánchez. Castro – who began his intervention with the phrase of the Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, Alejandro Luzón, in the trial held last April in the Supreme Court against former Minister José Luis Ábalos that “” – has given a political tone to his report by stating that “the ghost that flies over here is Don Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón.” Castro has even suggested that if during the investigation and now at the hearing the Prosecutor’s Office does not accuse him, it is because he had political orders in this regard.
[Noticia en elaboración. Habrá ampliación]
