They will testify as witnesses after the Madrid Court ordered the judge to issue a rogatory commission in November
MADRID, 26 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The head of the Investigating Court Number 42 of Madrid will question two Neurona workers residing in Mexico on Monday, May 30, at 5:00 p.m. to clarify the services provided to Podemos during the campaign for the general elections of April 2019, within the framework of the 363,000 euro contract that the judge is investigating.
Legal sources have confirmed to Europa Press that magistrate Juan José Escalonilla will take a statement as witnesses from Germán Cobos Pío –the alleged link between Podemos and Neurona, according to the administrator of the consultancy in Spain– and Waldemar Aguado Butanda –who In March 2019, he received the first copy of the contract under investigation and was in charge of making 48 graphic designs for the campaign–.
The interrogation will take place after last November the Madrid Provincial Court estimated two appeals, the one presented by the defense of the Neurona administrator in Spain – to which Podemos joined – and the one filed by the popular accusation brought by Vox, and order the investigating judge to practice the testimonial that he had denied.
Although at first – in December 2020 – the judge approved Vox’s request to call the two workers to testify, in June 2021 he concluded – like the Prosecutor’s Office – that there was no need issue the letter rogatory to Mexico, considering that what those two witnesses could say had already been proven by the people who had testified in Madrid.
After the resolution of the Provincial Court, Escalonilla issued a new order in which he asked the Mexican judicial authorities for help to hold the interrogation of the two consultant workers and ask them about the contract agreed with the ‘purple’ formation.
The magistrates of the Madrid Court considered these testimonials “necessary” once the investigating judge has not yet specified the evidence to keep the Neurona administrator in Spain charged. As they specified, “it is appropriate to practice the same in order not to cause defenselessness.”
Both testimonials will take place within the framework of the investigation in which the expert report commissioned by Judge Escalonilla on the cost of the services provided by the consultant is still pending. In April, the head of the Court ordered the search for a new expert –given the refusal of the previously appointed one–; this month, the Court of Madrid has ordered that the expert analysis be expanded and another 134 files be included.