Salamanca, Feb 9 (EFE) .- The Salamanca Prosecutor’s Office has asked the Provincial Court to clarify the order ordering the statement as a witness with a lawyer for the provincial president of the PP, Javier Iglesias, in the case investigating the alleged financing illegal of the PP in Castilla y León on the occasion of the 2017 primary elections, when estimating that the figure of witness with a lawyer is not covered by the Law.
The primary elections of the PP of Castilla y León in 2017 were held to elect the successor of Juan Vicente Herrera at the head of the party and the current president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, won the other candidate, the then mayor. de León and today a PP senator for León, Antonio Silván.
In mid-June 2019, during the negotiations between the PP and Cs to form the Government in Castilla y León, the Court of Instruction 2 of Salamanca opened preliminary proceedings after the presentation of an anonymous complaint that referred to the request for money, between 300 and 500 euros, to charges and advisers of the PP to pay back fees of affiliates who needed to regularize these payments to participate in the primaries of the PPCyL.
In addition, an affiliate, now deceased, recorded a video in which he explains that they called him from the Salamanca Provincial Council to ask for his vote for Fernández Mañueco and they would pay him the arrears of the fees to allow him to vote.
The Provincial Court of Salamanca issued a judicial order this past Monday, as a result of an appeal filed by the Left Forum-Los Verdes, in which it orders the Investigating Court 2 to summon the provincial president to testify as a witness with the assistance of a lawyer of the PP, Javier Iglesias, and the former secretary general of New Generations in Salamanca, César Gómez-Barthe.
Faced with this decision, the Salamanca Prosecutor’s Office has presented an appeal for clarification in which it warns the Hearing that the figure of witness with a lawyer is not included in the Law and that it has even qualified it as a “novel condition”, according to the text to which Efe has had access.
In addition, he added that in the case “it does not appear that there are reasons for the adoption of this measure”, since it is used, exceptionally, in “major corruption processes” and in those cases “in which the witness is found investigated in another case or even in another piece of the same case “.
The Prosecutor’s Office wants to clarify “if what is intended is to say that there are indications that may lead to the statement of the investigated”, which should have been included in the order.
For this reason, it asks the Hearing to clarify this “obscure concept”, since the intervention of a lawyer “lacks legal support”, to avoid “procedural incidents that lead to complaints or challenges”.
And he has demanded that “determine as accurately as possible what is the legal support of his decision and what are the precise conditions in which the agreed diligence must unfold.”
“That is, if what is intended with the order is that the legal aid is to advise them to answer certain questions or not, in addition to significantly damaging the accusation, it collides head-on with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law that requires to answer all the questions declared pertinent, after an oath or promise to tell the truth, “he said.
In the order of the Hearing, the Court is asked to testify other 32 people, some of them party officials, who have already testified through sworn statements, but who will now have to appear before the judge, although the Prosecutor’s Office wants to know if these 32 witnesses must appear “also with legal assistance” .EFE
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