The Prosecutor's Office renounces to appeal to the Supreme Court the file of the investigation against the former DIA leader

Its former CEO and other managers were investigated for an alleged accounting falsehood in the 2016 and 2017 accounts

MADRID, 16 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Prosecutor's Office has renounced to appeal to the Supreme Court the file of the investigation related to the former leadership of DIA agreed by the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón.

In this way, the file becomes definitive, according to confirmed by Europa Press legal sources consulted, which add that the Public Ministry had filed an appeal to the judge's decision in the National Court but that it later withdrew in the Supreme Court.

It should be remembered that in this case the National Court investigated both the former CEO of DIA Ricardo Currás and the former leadership of the company for alleged false accounting. Specifically, Currás; the one who was his 'number two', Armando Sánchez Falcón; the former commercial directors of DIA Luis Martínez Gallardo and Juan Cubillo; and the former financial director Antonio Arranz Martín were listed as being investigated for allegedly having fattened the company's accounts in 2016 and 2017 through irregular practices that would have led to a fictitious increase of almost 52 million euros and that, once uncovered with the accounting regularization of 2018, would have caused the collapse of the shares of DIA and the entry of the company in cause of dissolution.

In the order of the judge of the National Court, to which Europa Press had access, the judge agreed to exempt them from criminal responsibility. This, after in December 2021 the Criminal Chamber of the National Court revoked the prosecution of the former DIA leadership, considering that the alleged accounting maneuvers that were being investigated would not have been the only cause of the economic damage caused by the collapse of the shares of the distribution company.

On that occasion, the Criminal Chamber returned the case to Judge García Castellón after partially estimating an appeal filed by Currás and nullifying the order of February 2021 in which Judge Alejandro Abascal -then reinforcement judge of the Court Central de Instrucción Number 6-- proposed to try five of the defendants for a continuous crime of false accounting.

The head of the Court, García Castellón, explained after the resolution of the Chamber that "given that the investigation is finished" --and that the Criminal Chamber considered it appropriate to revoke the prosecution-- what proceeds is to agree to file the proceedings .

In eight pages, the magistrate indicated that if he endorses the conclusions of the Criminal Chamber, he can come to the conviction that "the criminal type requirements are not met" and that, therefore, "the facts investigated would not constitute crime". In this sense, however, he specified that they could have a reproach of an administrative nature, in response to the breach of accounting regulations, but this does not correspond to the Court.

Thus, García Castellón assured that in this case it had been highlighted that there were a plurality or multitude of causes, "for which reason there are different hypotheses about the cause of the stock market decline in the value of DIA shares" and that, therefore, it was not possible to attribute an alleged crime of false accounting to them.