The Alicante businessman Julio Martínez Martínez declared this Tuesday at the Audiencia Nacional that it was former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero who informed him in advance that the Government was going to grant the rescue to the airline Plus Ultra.
Similarly, he denied having mediated with SEPI to obtain the public aid of 53 million euros, according to legal sources told EL MUNDO. Judge José Luis Calama then made an inference, pointing out that, with his denial, it was already known who had carried out those negotiations, in a veiled reference to former President Zapatero.
Martínez Martínez answered the questions posed by the instructor of the Plus Ultra case, anti-corruption prosecutor Elena Lorente and his lawyer María Dolores Márquez de Prado. He testified for approximately three and a half hours, according to case sources.
The businessman, accused of being the alleged front man for the former president and former secretary general of the PSOE, confessed in writing yesterday that it was Zapatero who, on February 26, 2021, informed him that the State Industrial Participation Company (SEPI) was going to grant the loan requested by Plus Ultra. The granting of the aforementioned loan was approved several days later by the Council of Ministers, specifically, on March 9, 2021.
When asked about which people the former Prime Minister would have influenced in favor of the airline, the accused stated that he did not know. He did confirm that they collected a 1 percent commission for having managed to obtain the millionaire state aid and that it was Zapatero who determined that the payments of the “mordida” (bribe) should be channeled through the company Análisis Relevante.
The investigators’ suspicion – which has now been confirmed by Martínez Martínez through his judicial collaboration – is that, in reality, this company was created so that the former president could covertly collect the payments he received as a commission agent in Spain and also internationally. The judge accuses the former secretary general of the PSOE of leading a criminal structure dedicated to influence peddling in our country and abroad, through connections in Venezuela, China and the United Arab Emirates.
Breakdown of the ‘bribe’
During the interrogation, Julito – as this businessman is known in Madrid’s power circles – also ratified that his level of influence in the public administration was nil since he acted as a mere intermediary between Zapatero and the clients that the former president attracted for Análisis Relevante.
Likewise, he explained that the payments of the “mordida” were broken down among different companies due to the media pressure that arose around the rescue, after the first reports questioning the granting of aid to Plus Ultra were published.
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Specifically, 249,000 euros were paid to Análisis Relevante, 98,617.53 euros to the company Voli Analítica SL, and 110,799.47 to IOT Domotic Europe SL. This diversification of payments among different instrumental companies has been confirmed in respective confessions by Plus Ultra executives, owner Julio Martínez Sola, and the company’s CEO, Roberto Roselli, who have also decided to collaborate with justice.
On the other hand, the investigated declared that it was Zapatero who introduced him to Venezuela and presented him to Delcy Rodríguez, then vice president of Nicolás Maduro’s regime and now acting president of the Caribbean country. Julito began to deal directly with “the lady” – as he called her – on all matters related to the country. She told him who to call for each negotiation.
The judge points to Whathefav
Likewise, at another point in the interrogation, Judge Calama indicated that the role of Whathefav, the company owned by Zapatero’s daughters that received a monthly retainer of 5,000 euros from Análisis Relevante as part of the agreement with the former president, would be thoroughly investigated. According to sources familiar with the statement, the instructor made it clear that he did not believe that the report layout work justified those amounts.
To questions from his defense, Julio Martínez explained that in 2022 Whathefav stopped doing work, but that he had to continue paying the retainer. The reason: that they were Zapatero’s daughters.
On the other hand, the investigated acknowledged something that Zapatero did not assume: that the former president attended a meal at the Portonovo restaurant in Madrid, to which investigators attach great importance. The reason is that the next day, steps were taken to create a company in Dubai that would have been used to channel illegal commissions.
When he appeared on June 17 at the Audiencia Nacional, Zapatero told the judge that he did not remember that lunch and that he would consult his agenda. As for Julito, although he acknowledged the meal, he disassociated it from the Dubai operation, and in turn attributed it to other matters, specifically, the collection of a debt.
Furthermore, the businessman gave vague explanations about the origin of the large amount of cash, 286,000 euros, that the Udef found distributed throughout his home. He attributed it to real estate operations that he did not want to specify. He did acknowledge that it was undeclared money, according to sources familiar with the statement. Part of the funds was in envelopes with Chinese characters. He explained that he does not know what was written on the envelopes.
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