The Plus Ultra case is reactivated after the summer holidays with two key statements: those of the former president of Plus Ultra, Julio Martínez Sola, and the former CEO of the company, Roberto Roselli, who, as EL MUNDO reported, decided last July to cooperate with Justice just as the businessman Julio Martínez Martínez had already done.
Both defendants will confirm the key role of the former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in granting the state bailout of the airline and the payment of an illegal 1% commission for the alleged arrangements made by the former PSOE leader.
According to sources close to the former executives, both Martínez Sola – who appears today – and Roselli – who will do so tomorrow – plan to answer the questions posed by the investigating judge, the Anti-Corruption prosecutor Elena Lorente, and their respective lawyers.
According to what this newspaper has learned, both Martínez Sola and Roselli intend to explain in court that they turned to Zapatero and his alleged frontman, Julito Martínez Martínez, with the aim of saving the company. They do not know with whom the former Prime Minister exercised that intermediation, but they paid for the arrangements and managed to access 53 million euros in public aid from the Council of Ministers chaired by Pedro Sánchez.
In the case of the former president of Plus Ultra, he will recount how on April 30, 2020, he received a call from a hidden number from former president Zapatero himself. He will say that during the approximately 10-minute conversation he explained to the former PSOE leader the difficult financial situation the company was going through and the need to access an ICO loan. According to Martínez Sola, Zapatero replied that his intervention could be helpful and that he would make the appropriate arrangements. He also indicated that, from then on, he would maintain communications with a trusted person, referring to Martínez Martínez.
The businessman plans to explain that, at first, both he and Roselli thought that Zapatero’s arrangements would have no cost but later realized that they did. The former Plus Ultra executives will emphasize, however, that they are unaware of the internal agreements that Julito and the former Prime Minister may have established for the distribution of the kickback money.
The investigation by the National Court has revealed, thanks to the traceability of payments, that the illegal 1% commission of the bailout was broken down into payments made to several companies controlled by Julio Martínez Martínez, with 249,000 euros paid to Análisis Relevante, 98,617.53 euros to Voli Analítica SL, and 110,799.47 to IOT Domotic Europe SL. In addition, the former Plus Ultra executives will also detail that, although Julito initially intended to receive the full amount up to the agreed 530,000 euros, he finally accepted that the payments included an in-kind payment valued at 69,000 euros – consisting of business class tickets that the airline made available to him.
Rejection of nullity
To these confessions is added the setback in the defense strategy suffered last Friday by former president Zapatero when Judge Calama closed the door to annul the case in a final ruling – no appeal can be filed against the magistrate’s decision.
So far, Zapatero’s defense has gone through two extremes. On the one hand, the former PSOE leader has categorically denied having exerted any influence to obtain the Plus Ultra bailout and, on the other, his lawyer, Professor Víctor Moreno Catena, has tried to annul the procedure arguing a violation of fundamental rights.
In the ruling, notified last Friday, Judge Calama rejected annulling all the relevant milestones of the investigation: the assumption of jurisdiction by the National Court to investigate the facts, the searches and seizures carried out, the freezing of bank accounts of the Zapatero family, the initiation of the separate file for the discovery of the jewels, etc.
In this context, the consulted legal sources indicate that the defense strategy of the former Prime Minister is fatally wounded both by the cooperation with Justice established by the other defendants and by having trusted that he would achieve nullity of the procedure.
Added to this is that, since May 19, when agents of the Udef seized the millionaire jewels that the former socialist president hid in a safe in his official office, the defendant has offered no explanation to Justice.
When Zapatero was summoned as a defendant to testify before the National Court on June 17, he refused to give explanations to Calama about the jewels valued at at least 1.3 million euros. This silence, prolonged for weeks – although the former Prime Minister set a 10-day deadline to provide an explanation – constitutes for the investigators a “very strong indication” against the defendant who, for now, continues to be clearly unable to prove the lawful origin of the precious stones.
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