Almeida's cousin excludes the mayor from the contact he had with commissioner Luis Medina

Almeida's cousin excludes the mayor from the contact he had with commissioner Luis Medina

Carlos Martínez-Almeida, cousin of the mayor of Madrid, testified this Thursday as a witness in the mask case and assured that he only provided the commission agent Luis Medina with an email address from the Madrid City Council that did not belong to the person in charge of purchasing, Elena Collado , of which he also did not provide his telephone number to the investigated. Likewise, the witness has said that this address was obtained from the general coordinator of the City Council, Matilde García Duarte, and not from her cousin, the mayor, legal sources inform elDiario.es.

The judge calls Almeida's cousin to testify as a witness to clarify whether there was "favorable treatment" to the commission agents

Know more

In this sense, Martínez-Almeida has offered the judge an email address that would have been the one he provided to Medina and that is [email protected], which would correspond to the department headed by García Duarte, Almeida's right-hand man. The mayor's cousin has said that he turned to Matilde García Duarte and not her cousin because he and the City Council's general coordinator are friends.

On the other hand, Carlos Martínez-Almeida has contradicted his friend, María Díaz de la Cebosa. She said that it was he who offered her to provide Medina with her telephone number, while the mayor's cousin declared this Thursday before the judge that it was Díaz de la Cebosa who asked him for permission to give her telephone number to Medina. According to Carlos Martínez-Almeida, he did not know Medina before.

Carlos Martínez-Almeida has also said that he spoke a second time with Medina because the commission agent turned to him after having written to the email address he gave him without receiving a response. So, according to the version of the mayor's cousin in court, he made a second move, again with the mayor's right-hand man, Matilde García Duarte. She would have confirmed the receipt of Medina's mail, Carlos Martínez-Almeida transferred it to the commission agent and they did not speak again, the witness assured in his statement.

The same version that the mayor spread

With this statement, Carlos Martínez-Almeida reproduces before the judge the version that the mayor of Madrid inaugurated days after elDiario.es revealed the existence of a secret investigation in the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, on March 31. According to the mayor, he learned of his cousin's participation in the events when elDiario.es published the information and not before, despite the fact that he did know that the Anti-Corruption investigations existed because they had requested documentation from the City Council 17 months earlier and the coordinator of City Council budgets had testified as a witness.

In that statement, Elena Collado gave a different version to the one being investigated and witnesses before the judge. Collado, whose statement as a witness or defendant is pending, said then that she thought she remembered that she spoke with Medina on the phone but that she did not know if she put him in contact with another City Council coordinator or a councilor.

He uses his status as a lawyer to avoid the media

The mayor's cousin avoided the numerous media stationed at the main door of the Plaza de Castilla courts, taking advantage of his status as a lawyer, which allows him access through other doors. However, he arrived a few minutes late for the statement, which was interrupted shortly by a request from the popular accusations of the PSOE and the Mixed Group of the Madrid City Council for the magistrate to change the status of Carlos Martínez-Almeida from witness to accused. After a few minutes of recess, Adolfo Carretero ordered the testimony of Almeida's cousin to continue with the condition of witness with which he had been summoned.

María Díez de la Cebosa was the last witness to explain to the judge in the mask case that she was the one who gave Luis Medina the contact details of the mayor's cousin when he asked for help to contact someone from the City Council or the Community of Madrid and offer medical supplies. . According to the various statements in the summary, Carlos Martínez-Almeida offered his telephone number and sent him an email address.

Source link