On March 22, 2020, from the official Twitter account of the Madrid City Council, the consistory reported that a material donation system had been set up to fight against Covid. “You can go to 010 or write to cgalcaldía@madrid.es”, you can read in said publication, “PASS IT!”.
This email is precisely the one that the mayor’s cousin, Carlos Martínez-Almeida, provided to businessmen Luis Medina and Alberto Luceño after a phone call to the general coordinator of the City Council, Matilde García Duarte. “I provided a generic email”, he came to assure yesterday in his statement as a witness before the judge investigating the Masks case because he believed that they had an “altruistic” intention, according to the legal sources consulted present at the appearance in which, in addition, he denied the participation of the mayor.
According to his version, Medina contacted him by phone on two occasions through a mutual friend, María Díaz de la Cebosa, the director of a private university where he had studied. The mayor’s cousin, in turn, would have called the general coordinator of the Mayor’s Office, Matilde García Duarte, who would have facilitated contact with the City Council. Negotiations then began with the official in charge of purchasing medical supplies for the consistory during the first wave of the pandemic, Elena Collado. The judge suspended her statement as a witness on May 9 to ask the parties if he should charge her in the case.
In a letter to which ABC has had access, the Madrid City Council opposes taking a statement as an investigator. “It is not justified,” they state in the letter, and points to popular accusations, “a prospective investigation is proposed to obtain evidence of criminality, instead of justifying what criminal acts can be attributed to substantiate that possible imputation.”
The city council denies that Collado prevaricated. “No reference is made to any arbitrary resolution issued by Ms. Collado that may have been illegal,” she alleges. And she also denies that she committed a crime of embezzlement, since “as general coordinator of Budgets and Human Resources of the Treasury and Personnel Government Area of the Madrid City Council, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of SFM, she totally lacked the legal decision-making power or material possession of the funds or effects paid, since the contracts were approved by the Board of Directors of the SFM».
The legal services of the city council also reject that a crime of fraud is attributed to him, since they defend that it was Medina and Luceño who “deceived the City Council and, therefore, Mrs. Collado, without there being any evidence to confirm that she was aware of or collaborated with them in their actions».
Once all the allegations are presented, the head of the Court of Instruction number 47 of Madrid, Adolfo Carretero, will have to study all the arguments and decide whether to charge Elena Collado as popular accusations request.
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