Spain, alleged fraud by Madrid president's partner triggered crisis

teleSUR English

*Ayuso denounces hunt from the highest levels of the judiciary *State Attorney General has not been the only one to be tainted *Image of the judiciary has deteriorated over the past few years *Biases and systemic weaknesses of the judiciary could be a cause of these anomalies *Consequences are concentrated on those who have reported the case

Transcript

00:00Now in Spain, the case of the alleged fraud of the partner of President of Madrid, Isabel

00:05Díaz Ayuso, has unleashed a political and judicial crisis with the indictment of the

00:10Attorney General of the state for the first time in a democracy.

00:14Our correspondent, Alvaro Fraga, with the details.

00:18The alleged fraud of more than 350,000 euros of Alberto González, partner of Díaz Ayuso,

00:25has resulted in the investigation of the state attorney general for the first time in democracy.

00:29And for the leak of some e-mails between the lawyer of Alberto González and the public

00:34prosecutor's office, where they recognized the crime.

00:38What is happening in Spain is extremely serious.

00:42What we have learned these days is that there has been a state operation against a political

00:46adversary.

00:48This is unbecoming of a member country of the European Union.

00:53Ayuso denounces a hunt from the highest magistracies.

00:58Meanwhile, Sánchez defends the performance of the state attorney general, Alvaro García

01:03Ortiz, and points the finger at the Popular Party.

01:08We respect the decision of the Supreme Court, but we support the action of the attorney

01:13general of the state.

01:15When is the Popular Party going to ask for explanations and demand accountability from

01:20the president of the community of Madrid, who is the partner of a confessed criminal?

01:27The state attorney general has not been the only one to be tainted.

01:34The former leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in Madrid, Juan Lobato, resigned

01:39because of the leak and the party's loss of confidence on the eve of its 41st Federal

01:45Congress of the Socialist Party.

01:49What happens in Madrid, for those who are listening to us, the power is concentrated

01:53in Madrid, the economic power, the financial power, the media power too, the big transnational

01:59capitals, so if you put all the power in Madrid and give it self-government, you turn its

02:04president into the president of power.

02:11An analysis that emphasizes how political, media and judicial operators act, and that

02:17the state attorney general also hinted at.

02:21We prosecutors handle very sensitive material, and we also handle a lot of information, a

02:28lot of information.

02:29I assure you that if I wanted to harm a certain political spectrum, I have plenty of information,

02:35which of course I will never use either to insinuate or to leak or to say anything.

02:44In recent years, the image of the judiciary has deteriorated precisely because of political

02:49interference and operations.

02:53If you touch financial powers or the partner of the president of the power you are going

02:57to have a cascading response from all the powers, also within the judicial ecosystem

03:02where some judicial operators act as political agents.

03:06It is the state attorney general himself who ends up being indicted.

03:10This is not a minor thing, this reveals that in Madrid there is more concentrated power

03:14than in the government of Spain and in the state institutions.

03:22According to the analyst, the biases and systemic weaknesses of the judiciary in Spain could

03:27be a cause of these anomalies.

03:31In Spain there are biases in the resolutions of the judiciary and it has to do with how

03:35justice is structured in its own access, in its own class composition, in its own gender

03:42and its tradition inherited from even before democracy and the moment of the democratic

03:46transition.

03:47In the midst of this political and judicial storm whose end is still uncertain, Ayuso

03:56remains in her post.

03:58The consequences are concentrated on those who have denounced the case, and Madrid remains

04:03the epicenter where much more than regional policies are decided.

Category

Transcript

Recommended