The Prosecutor's Office asks the judge of the alleged 'box b' of the Madrid PP to give 'El Rata' more time to write his report

Anti-corruption explains that if the former mayor of Majadahonda has been delayed it is for "causes beyond his control"

MADRID, 6 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has asked the judge of the National High Court who is investigating whether there was a 'box b' in the PP in Madrid to give the former mayor of Majadahonda Guillermo Ortega, alias 'El Rata', more time to deliver the report that is elaborating from prison on the irregularities he denounced in the Puerta de Toledo Market, one of the last fringes of this separate piece of 'Púnica', where former Madrid president Esperanza Aguirre is charged.

In a letter, to which Europa Press has had access, the prosecutors Carmen García Cerdá, María Teresa Gálvez and Alejandro Cabaleiro appeal the decision of the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, Manuel García Castellón, to terminate the last term of ten days he had granted Ortega to finish his 'dossier'.

Prosecutors recall that it was on February 23 when Ortega expressed his intention to collaborate with the justice system, requesting that he be authorized to access his personal computer in the penitentiary center in order to present a brief in support of his complaints about the alleged irregularities in the Market. Toledo gate.

On April 8, the instructor authorized him to have "wide access" to the computer and the necessary documentation and to allow his lawyer to help him, while giving him a maximum period of two months to deliver his report. However, just a month later, on May 23, Ortega notified the National Court that the laptop had broken down and had been sent to a computer technician for repair, which is why he asked to extend the deadline.

With the start of June, the instructor granted him this extension of the initial term, giving him another ten days. On June 22, García Castellón deemed the time given to Ortega to prepare his report exhausted, emphasizing that the continuation of this separate piece cannot be made to depend on the "will" of the former mayor.

However, the prosecutors argue that "there have been causes beyond Ortega's own will that have prevented this person from being able to fulfill the instructor's mandate within the established period."

For this reason, they not only ask to revoke said order, but also to issue another to grant a new term to Ortega, that his lawyer can access jail and that the repaired computer be delivered to him.

The Association of Democratic Lawyers for Europe (ADADE), under whose coordination the PSOE acts, expressed itself along the same lines. " on the research.

It was in April 2021 when 'El Rata' informed the National Court of "an alleged monetary diversion through the Mercado de Puerta de Toledo company", dependent on the public company IMADE. He pointed to more than a dozen invoices issued between 2006 and 2009 for "apparently fictitious work" - registered as public relations, maintenance or painting - that would add up to a total of 832,560 euros.

These revelations led the judge to open a new piece, number 13, to separate this matter from number 9, but the Criminal Chamber agreed with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, maintaining the alleged irregularities in the Puerta de Toledo Market within the investigation into the alleged illegal financing of the Madrid PP.

The legal sources consulted by Europa Press indicate that the 'El Rata' report is the last step before taking the next step in the procedure. In fact, in the aforementioned resolution, García Castellón states that, at this point, it is "imminent" to proceed in accordance with one of the possibilities of article 779 of the Law of Criminal Procedure (LeCrim), that is, file or move towards the next procedural phase.

The 9 is the separate piece of greater importance of 'Púnica' because García Castellón tries to determine if there was a 'box b' in the Madrid PP that served to pay for the electoral campaigns of 2007, 2008 and 2011.

The investigations began in 2014 after the discovery of an agenda of his former secretary general Francisco Granados, considered the 'ringleader' of the 'Púnica', in which a few acronyms can be read, which would correspond to donors, along with some amounts of money.

In the first coup of the 'Operation Punic', that same year, more than 50 people were arrested, including politicians, officials and businessmen, as members of a corruption network that would have awarded public contracts worth at least 250 million euros. since 2012 in the Community of Madrid.

On the one hand, the political and administrative officials made the awards 'by finger' and, on the other, the businessmen who benefited from this paid them illegal commissions that were laundered through a corporate network, according to the judicial report.

The then judge of the National Court Eloy Velasco investigated the facts as a whole until in 2015 he decided to cut the case into pieces to delve into the differentiated criminal acts that he was observing.