The Prosecutor's Office highlights the "animus" towards Irene Montero of a key witness in the 'nanny case'

The Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, and the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, at an act of Podemos this past weekend. Kai FORSTERLING (EFE)

The Prosecutor's Office breathes air into Podemos in the

by stressing that one of the key witnesses in the case opened by Judge Juan José Escalonilla, where two party workers have been charged for allegedly acting as caregivers of Irene's children Montero and Pablo Iglesias, show an "animus" towards the Minister of Equality.

The public ministry thus refers to Elena González, a former employee fired by the formation who testified before the magistrate last March, when she assured that she personally took a person from Montero's press team to her house to carry out these tasks of watch out.

González's statement before the judge was a setback for Podemos at the time.

The investigations had been born as a derivative of

, the investigation opened by the alleged irregular hiring of the Mexican consultant Neurona by Podemos for the general elections of April 2019. Within that cause, a former lawyer of the party, Mónica Carmona assured that Montero had turned to one of his advisers, María Teresa Arévalo – who, according to the lawyer, received a salary from the party – to take care of her youngest daughter, still a baby, during that campaign.

Therefore, the

He focused first on Árevalo, who denied the accusations, as well as senior officials of the formation.

Also Elena González herself, during her testimony last March, rejected that extreme and stated that she had never seen Arévalo act as a nanny.

But Elena González's statement introduced a new element: the former employee pointed to Gara S., who worked in Montero's press team.

As detailed by the Prosecutor's Office in a letter, dated May 12 and to which EL PAÍS had access, the former worker said that "another person was going to take care of the children, who was not Teresa Arévalo."

González reported that, shortly after the premature children of the political couple left the hospital in 2018, she herself took Gara by car to the home of the current minister.

“He would pick her up personally, take her in the morning and then stay all day,” González assured the judge, before adding: “He was in charge of taking care of [the minors] because that person told me about it.”

Of course, the key witness clarified that she did not know if she came to help her as part of her work day or out of simple friendship with her:

“They were very close friends, they have always had a relationship.

And then, also as she was a sentimental partner of [the deputy] Rafa Mayoral...”.

After hearing this story, Judge Escalonilla decided to name Gara S. as the defendant. The Prosecutor's Office has not objected to her statement —which has not yet been produced—, but points out in her letter González's "animus" against Montero and stresses that “It is not strange that a friend helps another with two newborns, premature, just out of the hospital”: “And that she does it without being paid for it”.

In fact, the public ministry adds that it is not "illogical" that, during the discharge of the current minister, "political meetings were held at her home, given the position that both she and Pablo Iglesias held in the party."