The then leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias (in the center), accompanied by party deputy Rafael Mayoral and judge Victoria Rosell, in 2019 Carlos Diaz
The Provincial Court of Madrid has definitively shelved the investigation regarding the Caja de Solidaridad de Podemos - where party officials donate part of their salary for social purposes. The investigating judge closed the case on two occasions by failing to see signs of unfair administration and confirming that "there is no evidence of diversion of funds." Section 30 of the Provincial Court of Madrid now dismisses the appeal of Vox and the former senator of Podemos Celia Cánovas against the file of this case on July 23 and decrees its definitive closure. With this, six of the seven pieces of the so-called Neurona case have been filed, which investigates whether the party incurred in the crime of illegal financing in the contract signed with the Mexican consultancy ahead of the 2019 general elections.
After the filing of almost all open investigations, such as those referring to alleged bonuses from party positions or possible irregularities in the works of the new headquarters of the purple formation, the so-called
Nanny case remains open
,
in which it is investigated whether a Advisor to the current Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, served as caregiver for the daughter of politics.
At the origin of the investigation against Podemos is the complaint of the former lawyer of the purple formation José Manuel Calvente, who attributed to Rafael Mayoral the responsibility for the money of the aforementioned Solidarity Fund and detailed that 50,000 euros could have been paid from this fund to the company # 404 Popular Communication irregularly. But the Prosecutor's Office saw no evidence of a crime and the head of the Madrid Investigative Court, Juan José Escalonilla, filed the case in October 2020. This decision was appealed by several of the accusations and they managed to get the Madrid court to order the case to be reopened in February 2021 until the full clarification of the facts.
The magistrate carried out various procedures, such as commissioning a study from the Police on banking transactions, until in June 2021 he closed this investigation again, not considering it proven that there was diversion of funds, since the money was spent for "lawful" purposes, which is now endorsed by the Provincial Court. The Chamber concludes that, as the Prosecutor's Office points out when opposing the resources of Vox and Celia Cánovas, "there is no evidence of the existence of distraction of the funds received by the Podemos party directed to their leaders" and "there is no rule that prohibits donation to entity 404 ″.
“None of its members holds an organic position or a directive function in the party.
In any case, there is no record of any payment to Rafael Mayoral as declared by the complainant, "adds the order, which indicates that Cánovas' appeal - to which Vox is added - is aimed at" reviewing the articles of the Regulations of the Caja de Solidarity ”, something that the court“ does not compete with ”.
“If the appellant considers that said regulation allows donations to be made, apparently without the control of whoever manages its funds, this is a matter that must be resolved as an internal matter of the political party through the mechanisms that, where appropriate, contemplate its statutes and internal regulations, and not through criminal law ”, he adds.