José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has filed an appeal requesting the Criminal Chamber of the National Court to overturn Judge José Luis Calama‘s decision and annul the branch of his investigation related to his business dealings in Bolivia.
The defense of the former Prime Minister states that the judge of the Plus Ultra case and the Udef have overstepped by tracking economic activities for which there was no indication of any crime when Zapatero was charged. “The police unit issued that report as a result of a general investigation conducted on Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero that extends to all his professional activity,” says the statement from lawyer Víctor Moreno Catena.
The accused had already asked Calama himself in a motion to rectify his decision to investigate Zapatero’s dealings with the Bolivian government and his income from them. The judge refused to return that report to the Udef, replying that Zapatero was not “shielded” from the investigation of new criminal acts that appeared in the investigation, as was the case.
That resolution refusing to deactivate the investigation into Bolivia “is based on a premise that […] could constitute a true letter of marque for the investigation to be directed at any personal or professional action in the life of the accused,” since the order to search his office authorized the seizure of “massive information (Whatsapp conversations, emails, agendas, bank documents, private documents of any nature, etc.), which allow tracing with enormous precision everything a person has done, day by day and hour by hour, for more than six years.”
Zapatero emphasizes that the evidence of the alleged influence peddling “is limited exclusively to the Plus Ultra case.” “To claim that there is a network with criminal purposes and then undertake the search for more than one crime to prove that such a network exists involves a fallacious reasoning,” adds the appeal that will be reviewed by the Third Criminal Section, responsible for reviewing Judge Calama’s actions in the Plus Ultra case.
The report that Zapatero wanted to remove from the case detected three transfers totaling 200,000 euros that do not appear to correspond to services actually provided to the company Focus Social Research. According to the Udef, they mask the former president’s dealings with the Venezuelan government to free a company from a debt of 107 million dollars.
“The people behind these payments to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would be part of the Peruvian-origin business conglomerate called Grupo Gloria. The intended objective was to try to mediate or influence in favor of this business group in several multimillion-dollar lawsuits maintained with the Bolivian Public Administration. For this purpose, Zapatero had met or contacted high political spheres of Bolivia, such as the nation’s president himself, the Ministers of Economy and Justice, or the State Attorney General,” states the National Police report.
The Udef report highlights “the evidence of the existence of a criminal organization, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which, taking advantage of his contacts and international public influence, would be dedicated to exercising illicit influence for the benefit of various clients.”
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