MadridKey day in the mask case trial in the Supreme Court. After ten sessions, it is time for the statements of the three defendants: José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García and Víctor de Aldama. The first was the businessman and presumed fixer of the plot, who agreed to cooperate with justice a year and a half ago when he was in preventive detention for alleged hydrocarbon fraud. That is why the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for a much lower sentence for him. Just as he did at that embryonic moment of the investigation, he has decided to stretch the blanket and point directly at Pedro Sánchez. Without providing evidence and relying solely on his word, he has given meticulous details to try to accredit his privileged access to the spheres of power, has detailed the roadmap of the alleged corruption and has shown himself to be “remorseful” for what he did. “If there is a hierarchy of an organized criminal gang, Sánchez is at the top rank one,” he said. “I was told that the president knew everything,” he added. And he highlighted that everyone answered Koldo’s phone – who was Ábalos’s advisor in the Ministry of Transport – because “he was a person of Pedro Sánchez”.

This revelation came as Aldama had been testifying for two and a half hours and before the prosecutor opened the file on the purchase of masks. Previously, he confirmed that he paid 10,000 euros a month to Ábalos and Koldo from 2019 to 2022 for “fixed expenses” they had. “They always told me that part of that money went to the financing of the Socialist Party,” he stressed. He stated that Koldo told him that Sánchez “knew and was clear” about everything they were doing and that there “could not be” weeks or months that Ábalos was not given anything because, otherwise, “he started to distrust.” He even claimed to have taken 250,000 euros in a backpack to the Ministry of Transport. “I never carry a backpack, I only carried the backpack when I was carrying money in large quantities,” he justified. The money – he said – came from construction companies that received awards or from companies they helped. “I don’t look for them [to Ábalos and Koldo] because they give me [money], I look for notoriety and more power to do my business. They are the ones who come to me,” he concluded.

Aldama also spoke about the alleged irregularities in public works contracts, which are being investigated by the National Court in the so-called Cerdán case. Koldo had allegedly introduced him to construction companies that worked for the ministry: “We have to see how we can help them so that they get the tender. If we help them win it, we will have a return that we need for party financing,” he recalled that Ábalos’s advisor had explained to him, who told him that he would be the “nexus.” Aldama was surprised until he understood: “It’s not a normal donation, we are doing something illegal.” “I don’t feel entirely comfortable, but I don’t feel uncomfortable either, I’m a businessman and I see the opportunity,” he acknowledged. The construction companies had to say which tender they wanted to bid for, and Koldo was in charge of “marking it”.

Ferraz discredits Aldama’s words: “Unsubstantiated accusations because there is no crime to substantiate. Lie after lie,” socialist sources have denounced. “We will not allow ourselves to be defamed with impunity,” add the same voices. For her part, the Organization Secretary of the PSOE, Rebeca Torró, has denounced that the lies are Aldama’s “defense strategy”: “We do not expect apologies, for them to stop slandering is enough”.

How did you meet Pedro Sánchez?

In February 2019, at the end of a PSOE of Madrid rally in the La Latina Theater, Aldama met Sánchez: “I get up, I approach Koldo and he tells me to go with him behind the theater, that there is a private area where the president will receive me,” he recounted. And he recalled what the Spanish president told him: “Thank you very much for everything, I know perfectly well what you are doing and I just wanted to thank you.” Aldama was surprised by Koldo’s “closeness” to Sánchez. “I didn’t call him president, I called him Pedro,” he stressed. And he said what Ábalos’s advisor at the time replied: “The day the president tells me I have to call him president, I’m leaving the PSOE. He owes me a lot and he knows why.”

Among other things, the Supreme Court is investigating two contracts for the purchase of masks during the pandemic. They were in April 2020, more than a year after that meeting. Later, Aldama also boasted of having acted as an emissary for a letter from Moncloa addressed to Juan Guaidó when he had declared himself president of Venezuela. And he related this role as a messenger to the words Pedro Sánchez had told him. But this episode was in the summer of 2019, months after they met.

“Ladies” for Ábalos

At another time, Víctor de Aldama explained the day he himself paid for “escorts” for José Luis Ábalos: “Koldo tells me that something has to be organized for the boss so that he can relax. He tells me that some escorts have to be found and presented to the boss,” he said. They went to a restaurant in Mexico and “brought some escorts” who stayed with the then Minister of Transport. “It is the first and only time that I took care of escorts being with Ábalos, I paid for them,” he added.