21 months have passed since the resignation of Mónica Oltra as vice-president of the Valencian government until justice has given her the right, a period during which this executive was defeated at the polls. Although he always proclaimed his innocence, the then leader of Compromís took a step back in June 2022 in view of the strong political pressure exerted on the Botanic, the government presided over by Ximo Puig, for the alleged cover-up of the sexual abuses committed by her ex-husband, to a minor under guardianship.
Magistrate Judge Vicente Ríos yesterday decreed the filing of the case in an interlocutory hearing in which he determined that “there is not a single indication that an order was issued or any instruction emanating from the ministry’s managerial positions aimed at hiding the facts or to discredit the minor”.
The provisional filing, which can still be appealed, takes place after a long investigation in which more than 48,000 emails were examined that Oltra exchanged with his team when he was in charge of the Ministry of Equality. The police report provided in the case supports the version provided by Oltra in court.
In her statement, Oltra stated that she was not aware of the case for which her husband was being investigated until August 4, 2017, and she also did not know that Ramírez had been separated from his duties as a social educator of the Niño Jesús children’s center in Valencia, in the period between February 20 and March 12 of that year, following the fact that the minor reported the abuse for the first time. As she testified, her husband – whom she divorced soon after – told her he was on holiday.
The head of the court of inquiry number 15 of Valencia details in the interlocutory chronologically the facts proven during the investigation, since the victim suffered continued sexual abuse, between the end of 2016 and 2017, by the educator – facts for which he was sentenced to five years in prison – until 2019, when the Prosecutor’s Office received a report from the ministry. The judge considers that all the evidence that founded “the provisional judicial imputations” against the people investigated in this case – Oltra and 15 other high-ranking officials and officials of his department – “have completely disappeared once all the necessary steps have been taken to determine the nature and circumstances of the facts investigated”.
Having examined the copious documentation and heard all the parties related to the facts, “there is no rational indication of criminality against the defendants nor, as a result, any basis for issuing a resolution of definitive judicial imputation against them”, assures the judge.
The magistrate admits that certain behaviors followed by some of those investigated could have been “different from what they were”, but that “criminal legal consequences cannot be derived from this”. Therefore, the instructor does not see any evidence of a crime of administrative malfeasance, nor of abandoning minors or neglecting the duty to prosecute crimes, as the indictment believed.
According to the judge, the suspicions expressed in the initial complaint and complaint about the fact that there could have been a directive from the then Minister of Equality or any of the high-ranking officials of the ministry to discredit the victim or cover up the educator “finally they have not reached the category of evidence of criminality and remain as mere suspicions, speculations or conjectures on which a definitive judicial imputation cannot be based.”
The news was received with joy by his Compromís colleagues, some of whom have already expressed their desire for Oltra to return to the political forefront. His spokeswoman in Congress, Águeda Micó, stated that “he is an exceptional person, a point of reference for our organization. It is a great policy and it will always be what it wants to be within Compromís. He has never left and if he wants to return to the political front line, we are waiting for him with open arms”. Joan, bailiff at Les Corts, asked himself who is now paying for “all the wrong done, the suffering, the insults and the harassment”.
When asked about this issue, the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, expressed his “total respect for the judicial decisions”, and then added: “I have said, I say and I will say that every day that passes without asking for forgiveness from Maite, the girl who suffered abuse with final convictions and still pending execution, is an act that is not acceptable”.
