The former Minister of Transport of Spain and current deputy José Luis Ábalosformer right-hand man of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchezwas placed today in preventive arrest on suspicion of corruption during the Covid-19 pandemicthe court announced.
With this decision, José Luis Ábalos becomes the first Spanish deputy in office to be arrested preventively, and the court also prevented the possibility of paying bail to be released.
According to the same source, his former advisor Koldo Garciawhich gave the name to this extensive case — known as “Koldo Case” -, he was also placed in preventive detention, the judge said in a statement.
The precautionary measure had been requested by the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, which claimed there was a risk of escape.
Ábalos, Koldo and the alleged intermediary in the scheme, the businessman Victor de Aldama, are being tried for the alleged payment of commissions to political leaders in exchange for the award of contracts for the sale of masks during the covid-19 crisis to Soluciones de Gestión, linked to that businessman.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office asks for a sentence of 24 years in prison for Ábalos and 19.5 years for Koldo for the alleged crimes of participation in a criminal organization, bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement and use of privileged information, in addition to a fine of almost four million euros.
In turn, the representatives of the complainants, led by the Popular Party, are asking for sentences of 30 years in prison for Ábalos and Koldo, who they accuse of the same crimes as the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in addition to two additional charges: abuse of power and falsification of official documents.
Both the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the plaintiffs also ask for seven years’ imprisonment for Aldama, a sentence mitigated due to his “confession”, which served to expose the alleged scheme of irregular awarding of public contracts led by the former organizational secretary of the PSOE, former number two of the party that governs Spain, Santos Cerdán.