MADRID, 6 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The head of the Investigating Court Number 15 of Madrid, Esperanza Collazos, has summoned Plus Ultra as the person under investigation as a legal person to declare on June 15, at 10:00 a.m., within the framework of the proceedings that are being carried out on the alleged irregularities in the granting of the public aid that he received for 53 million euros.
Legal sources have confirmed to Europa Press that the magistrate has agreed to question the airline’s legal representative for the first time to clarify the facts that would give rise to an alleged crime of embezzlement and prevarication. Thus, as Vozpópuli has published, she has estimated the request of Vox, which exercises the popular accusation in the case together with the PP and Clean Hands.
The investigating judge has considered it pertinent to listen to the company after the experts who wrote the report commissioned by the court and those who signed the one requested by the State Industrial Participation Society (SEPI) presented their conclusions before the Court on March 29 .
According to legal sources present in the confrontation between experts to this agency, the experts assured that part of the subsidy granted by the Executive to Plus Ultra was used for a payment made to Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
The same sources specified that the court’s experts insisted that the company –as soon as it received the aid– proceeded to pay in full a debt with the Venezuelan state company. The experts from Deloitte and DC Advisor, for their part, explained that it was a payment to a supplier.
From Plus Ultra they confirmed to Europa Press that during the confrontation the payment related to the oil company was addressed. They indicated that the team of experts that advised SEPI clarified that “the debt with PDVSA had not been paid due to the embargo and international sanctions.” The company also stressed that the oil company is the fuel supplier of all the companies that operate in Caracas, not just Plus Ultra, and insisted that this “problem” affects all the airlines that fly to Venezuela.
Given this action, the independent experts of the court indicated that “the usual thing” in a company that needs public aid is to postpone the debt and make suppliers wait.
During the confrontation, they questioned whether the company could receive the 53 million euro subsidy, while the latter defended SEPI’s decision to grant the aid. Thus, both teams ratified the reports that they provided to the court and that they already defended on January 18 in a first confrontation that had to be repeated yesterday as a result of a technical failure.
In approximately two and a half hours, the experts answered questions from Judge Esperanza Collazos, the State Attorney’s Office, the Prosecutor’s Office and the popular accusations made by Manos Limpias, PP and Vox.
Now, it will be Plus Ultra’s turn, which must go to court on June 15. Being summoned as investigated, the company will be able to choose whether to respond to all the accusations and the judge or only to its defense; You can also make use of your right not to testify.
After the interrogation, the judge has yet to respond to the requests of the State Attorney’s Office and the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, which requested the file considering that there is no evidence of the commission of any allegedly criminal act.
State attorney Rosa María Seoane assured that it could be “concluded that the expert report does not provide any element that could, even indirectly, lead to doubting Plus Ultra’s ‘company not in crisis’ situation at the end of 2019, and much less remote indications of constitutive element of any criminal type”.
The Madrid Prosecutor’s Office concluded that there were no “conclusive elements” that would allow changing the criteria set forth by the Public Ministry in its previous writings.