Faced with the imminence of his entry into prison, José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García They opened the ban against the Government, breaking the tacit non-aggression pact that they had maintained until now with the PSOE.
First, Koldo contradicted Moncloa’s denial of the exclusive published by this newspaper, and corroborated the meeting between Sánchez y room in the Basque village in 2018. Ábalos also confirmed the meeting.
Later, the former minister accused Air Europa of “bribery” and suggested that Begoña Gómez benefited from the airline’s bailout.
Finally, he assured that Sánchez warned him in a meeting in Moncloa in 2023 that the UCO was investigating Koldo. And before entering prison, his former advisor confirmed to EL ESPAÑOL the version offered by the former minister.
The possibility that Ábalos and Koldo could continue confessing (thus bringing to light the clandestine plumbing with which Sánchez’s political network would have been woven) It has forced Moncloa to try to distance itself from them.
Sánchez asserted that his relationship with Koldo was “absolutely anecdotal.” And with respect to the former Secretary of Organization, the PSOE alleges that the person who has been imprisoned is a member of the Mixed Group, and not of its party.
But this attempt to enclose the alleged corrupt plot that arose within the Sánchez Government to a handful of autonomous ruffians clashes with the evidence that Ábalos and Cerdán successively served as the president’s lieutenants and managed all the logistics of his power core.
The PSOE only has, therefore, to discredit Ábalos’s testimonies as delusions of someone “deranged” by his imprisonment, and portraying him and his then right-hand man as “liars” and “blackmailers.”
An accusation that, on the other hand, is still contradictory, given that the blackmailers extort based on true elements and not lies.
But, even in the event that his confidences were motivated by a vindictive spirit or for the search for prison benefits, this would not invalidate them.
After all, the PSOE campaign to discredit Ábalos and Koldo has a long list of precedents in which it tried to discredit compromising statements by invoking the procedural situation of their issuers.
Regarding the GAL case, the former police officers Jose Amedo y Michel Dominguezthe socialist leader Ricardo García Damborenea and the colonel of the CESID Juan Alberto Perote They pointed out to the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior of Felipe Gonzálezin repeated judicial and media statements, as a promoter or at least aware of the “dirty war.”
And, in the area of reserved funds, the former director of the Civil Guard Luis Roldan acknowledged having received bonuses from the reserved funds, distributed by the environment of the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Verawith the knowledge of the Ministers of the Interior Jose Barrionuevo y José Luis Corcuera.
The PSOE framed these testimonies as self-interested and unreliable stories from defendants or convicts who sought to reduce their responsibilities, obtain prison benefits or settle scores. But a good part of these complaints were proven in a final ruling. against Barrionuevo, Vera and other senior officials.
Something similar happened when Luis Barcenas documented in his papers and judicial statements the B accounting of the PP, with which it assured that black bonuses were paid to party leaders, including Mariano Rajoy.
And also in that case the PP disdained how “false” or “manipulated” the former treasurer’s records, reducing them to an attempt to take revenge for his expulsion from the party. But the existence of a box B in the PP managed by Bárcenas was judicially accredited.
Regarding Ábalos, The former minister claims to have proof of his accusationsboth those referring to the trip to the hamlet and the president’s notice. And it probably refers to the content of the mobile devices still in the possession of the UCO.
In fact, as EL ESPAÑOL publishes today, in the recordings between Koldo and Santos Cerdan There are expressions that would support that Sánchez leaked to the former minister that his advisor was going to be charged.
If these facts were proven true, what they describe would be extremely serious.
It would mean that The president could have committed a crime of revealing secrets, because it is a confidential investigation; or having committed a crime of obstruction of justice, of having alerted his party colleagues about the tapping of his communications; or both.
Regardless of the circumstances in which Ábalos and Koldo’s stories are framed, it is impossible to ignore the elements to which they point. Experience shows that the accusations leveled against previous political leaders were still true because they came from accused people.
And the word of Ábalos and Koldo does not have to be worth less than that of all of them.