The confrontation of the lists of witnesses presented yesterday by the various parliamentary groups for the investigation commission in the Senate of the Koldo case leaves the former Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, as one of the most requested names, since, in the already known request of the PP, ERC was also added. A symptom that shows the intention of the two formations to wear down as much as they can the candidate of the PSC in the next Catalan elections in May, whose polls he leads by a wide margin.
The PSOE had assumed that the popular majority in the Senate would invalidate any attempt to avoid Illa’s intervention, despite the fact that, thanks to Sumar’s support, it does trust to curb its presence in the investigation commission that will be held in parallel with Congress of the Deputies.
Along with that of Illa, the other names that are repeated most in the different lists are that of the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, as well as that of his adviser, Koldo García, who gives his name to the investigation of the alleged collection of illegal commissions in the allocation of masks to different public administrations during the pandemic.
Those who have been left off the list – but only “for now”, because the PP wants to have a trump card – are the president of the central government, Pedro Sánchez, and his wife, Begoña Gómez. This is not the case of the president of the Congress, Francina Armengol, as well as the secretary of organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, or the former president of the RFEF Luis Rubiales.
Armengol’s name is not new, and neither is that of the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres. These are two objectives that the PP put in the spotlight from the moment the first fraudulent indications of the plot became known.
The PSOE reacted by regretting the existence of people who “have no connection” with the commission’s objective. For this reason, the possibility of requesting more appearances for a second phase of the commission has been reserved depending on how the work evolves in the Upper House.
The commission, which tomorrow will hold the first official meeting on the terms and work plans, will also parade the alleged masterminds of the plot, from Koldo García Izaguirre and Víctor de Aldama to the alleged mastermind of the operation, Juan Carlos Cueto, and the various administrators of Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a Empresas SL, Iñigo Rotaeche and José Ángel Escorial Senante.
Similarly, Koldo’s wife and brother, Patricia Uriz Iriarte and Joseba García Izaguirre, and businessmen Israel Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Sierra Monedero are on the list, who, according to investigators, were participants in the flow of commissions il legal
Also José Luis Rodríguez García, sub-lieutenant of the Civil Guard assigned to the Security Section of N uevos Ministerios, who, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, would have been key in the alleged plot, and Rubén Villalba Carnerero, an agent of the Civil Guard who was assigned in Venezuela and who is among those arrested for allegedly instigating the plot of the stabbings of the UCO.
