After hearing his accusation in the
Neurona case
, EL PAÍS spoke on Tuesday by phone with Juan Carlos Monedero, co-founder of Podemos, who denies any illegality in the payment of 26,200 euros that the Mexican consulting firm made him and that the magistrate Juan José Escalonilla linked to the subsequent hiring of the company by the party for the general elections held on April 28, 2019. The judge has decided to indict him after a five-month secret investigation.
"I have received an order where he tells me that I have to go to testify as an under investigation, but he doesn't tell me why," Monedero explains to questions from this newspaper.
It all starts with a complaint [from José Manuel Calvente, a former party lawyer], who said that everything he knew was based on rumors.
And, with this, the judge opens a secret investigation whose main conclusion is on an invoice that I have declared to the Treasury.
The judge of the 'Neurona case' imputes Juan Carlos Monedero
The judge of the 'Neurona case' suspects a payment to Monedero
"Did you work for the Neurona consultancy?"
"That's something I've been counting for two years."
Because I am a consultant and I work as a consultant.
What is the problem with it working with Neuron?
What is a left-wing consulting firm?
This case reminds me of the PISA report scandal - acronym for Pablo Pablo Iglesias Sociedad Anónima, a false police report attributed to the
patriotic police
created within the Ministry of the Interior during the period of Jorge Férnandez Díaz (PP) to allegedly persecute adversaries politicians and where it is claimed that Iran financed Podemos.
All to create a media scandal ...
—You invoiced 300 hours as a consultant.
"I have the email where the invoice is sent."
There are other emails, in one of which I send a training book;
there are the presences in Latin America;
they put me on their website as a contributor ...
—The judge says that that payment was in exchange for Podemos later hiring Neurona for the elections.
—But, at that time, [the invoice is from December 30, 2018], how were we going to know in Podemos that they were going to hire them?
We did not know that there would be elections.
These are convened, [in February 2019], after ERC did not approve the budgets.