Domínguez tried to discredit the officials who questioned the contract and the second payment to RR7

Conrado Domínguez, last Thursday, when leaving the City of Justice. / EFE

In the statement in court, the judge stopped the defense strategy in its tracks after criticizing the director of the SCS that they had not reported

Conrado Domínguez's defense strategy in the Mascarillas case not only involves endorsing the responsibility of the contract and its 'reactivation' once it expired, to the then General Director of Economic Resources, Ana María Pérez, but also questioning the testimony of the three officials with the category of heads of service who questioned how the initial contract was made, without guarantees of the solvency of the RR7 company, and above all that the second payment of 2 million euros was made when there were already well-founded suspicions that they were before a "scam" to Health.

This is evidenced in the viewing of the statement on Thursday by Domínguez before Judge Francisco Javier García García-Sotoca, instructor of the complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor for that contract of 4 million euros of the Canary Health Service with RR7 for one million of masks. The medical material was not delivered in the first instance and the SCS gave the company a second chance, which was also a fiasco.

After answering the questions of the judge, the prosecutor Javier Ródenas and the lawyers of the parties (the defendants Rayco González and Ana María Pérez) and the class action, Conrado Domínguez's lawyer began an interrogation of his client in which he asked by the opinion of the witnesses. In the first place, Domínguez says that he found out about that opinion of the high-ranking officials when he saw the video of his statement before the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, since neither they nor Ana María Pérez commented on it at the time. Then the lawyer asks if they had an obligation to report it, as civil servants that they are, if they understand that the contract regulations were being breached, to which Domínguez replies: "Yes?"

The lawyer then continues by asking the director of the SCS if he is aware that a file has been opened on the officials, to which Domínguez replies: "No." It is then that Judge García García-Sotoca intervenes and, addressing the lawyer, tells him: "Don't go that way."

Last Friday, the three officials cited as witnesses testified in court. They ratified what was said before the Prosecutor's Office: basically that, despite their extensive experience in terms of contracts, they did not remember a file processed such as that of RR7, without taking any precautions about the company and formalizing one hundred percent of the agreed payment without delivery of at least part of the merchandise.

Likewise, there was ratification in what was said about a meeting with Ana María Pérez in which they expressed their doubts about the advisability of making the second payment of 2 million euros to RR7. In fact, one of them commented that they were dealing with a "ghost company" and that the SCS could be the victim of a scam.

In the interrogation, Domínguez's lawyer asks him to make an inventory of those who were in charge of the Canary Health Service since March 2020, when the Management Committee was constituted in the face of the health emergency due to the pandemic, and September of that year, when Domínguez is named director. In his response, he first names Antonio Olivera and Alberto Pazos, at which point the lawyer asks him to sharpen his memory so that he finally mentions the third person who was missing: Blanca Méndez. She is the director of the SCS at the beginning of the state of alarm.

Domínguez and Pérez are sued for influence peddling and prevarication. The owner of RR7 is for aggravated fraud and money laundering.