The Provincial Court of Madrid has agreed to lift the precautionary measures imposed by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado on Begoña Gómez, wife of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, which means annulling the surrender of the passport, the prohibition to leave the country, and the obligation to sign at the court, although it has confirmed the instructor’s decision to send her to trial with a popular jury.
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In an order collected by Europa Press, the Madrid court agrees to maintain the trial with a popular jury against Sánchez’s wife, although it does so partially, only for the alleged crimes of influence peddling and embezzlement of public funds, as it dismisses two other charges the judge accused Gómez of: corruption in business and misappropriation.
The judges also endorse the trial with a jury against the advisor to Sánchez’s wife, Cristina Álvarez, for an alleged crime of embezzlement and only in relation to the supposed diversion of the ‘software’ of the chair co-directed by Gómez at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), so they dismiss the other three charges for her, the same as Gómez, that the judge attributed to her.
Furthermore, they decide to remove businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, the third defendant in the case, from the jury trial, agreeing that the investigation against him continues regarding “the legality or illegality of the awarding of public contracts.”
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The Madrid Court points out that the “indications” that exist about Gómez place her participation in alleged influence peddling committed by a private individual both in the creation of the chair and in the intermediation in favor of Barrabés, and alleged embezzlement of public assets both due to the destination of the ‘software’ and in the use for private purposes of her personal assistant.
“Not so for the crime of misappropriation and disloyal administration,” which “are committed over private assets and by persons who do not have the status of public officials,” while “the Penal Code contemplates other forms of criminal legal protection in cases of public assets, in this case through the crime of embezzlement.” “We also do not consider there to be indications regarding the crime of corruption in business,” it specifies.
For the judges, “it seems perfectly plausible to maintain” that Gómez “achieved the influence deployed from her privileged position as the wife of the Prime Minister, not only to obtain the granting of the chair, but to do so almost immediately and without verifying a minimum control over the consistency of the proposed project.”
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