The open mic that exposed the far-right Vox in the Corts reaches the Prosecutor's Office: they are investigating a possible leak to deputy David Muñoz

The phrase that the far-right Vox deputy David Muñoz uttered before an open microphone is now part of a Prosecutor's Office investigation. The Superior Prosecutor's Office of the Valencian Community has opened pre-procedural proceedings to clarify whether a representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office provided him with confidential information about a human trafficking case.

The procedure stems from the complaint filed by the PSPV before the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Valencia for a possible disclosure of secrets. The superior prosecutor has accepted the inhibition of the file this Thursday, has appointed an instructor, and has ordered the necessary actions to be carried out to determine the possible criminal relevance of the facts.

The opening of these proceedings does not yet prove that there was a leak. Its purpose is precisely to verify the origin of the data and decide whether to file a complaint with the courts or close the matter. The Superior Prosecutor's Office assumes the investigations because the person indicated by the parliamentarian himself would be a prosecutor, and article 73.3.b of the Organic Law of the Judiciary attributes these cases to the Criminal Chamber of the corresponding Superior Court of Justice.

"Nobody knows. I know it because the prosecutor told me"

As 'ElConstitucional.es' published on July 15, the conversation was recorded during a break in the Economy, Budgets and Finance Committee of Les Corts. Muñoz addressed his colleague Jesús Albiol and openly boasted about the data used during the debate. "What did you think of the use of privileged information? Nobody knows. I know it because the prosecutor told me," he said with a laugh. Albiol responded with a single word, "privileges".

Minutes earlier, Muñoz had spoken of an operation carried out in Nules, Castellón, against an organization dedicated to exploiting migrant workers. The far-right deputy assured that they were "all Pakistanis" and that they were "in the process of regularization due to the instructions of the Government of Spain".

The version about the nationalities clashes with the official information released by the Civil Guard. Agents freed 80 victims mainly of Nepalese, Pakistani, Senegalese, and various Arab countries' origin, who worked shifts of up to thirteen hours and lived crammed in accommodations without water or electricity. The operation resulted in seven arrests and was coordinated with the delegated prosecutor for Human Trafficking in Castellón.

The public information did reflect the extreme vulnerability of the victims, but it did not detail that all of them were undergoing a regularization process ordered by the Government, the fact that Muñoz said he learned through "the prosecutor." The proceedings must now determine what information he actually handled, if it was incorporated into a reserved investigation, and who could have conveyed it to him.

The same open microphone later picked up the sexist comments of the two Vox parliamentarians against the socialist Alicia Andújar. Jesús Albiol called the deputy "witch," while Muñoz criticized her tone of voice and assured that it made her seem "unpleasant." The conversation ended when Albiol received a call and quickly turned off the microphone.

Two open investigations and Vox takes refuge in "the joke"

The path opened this Thursday adds to the administrative file that the Fiscal Inspection of the Attorney General's Office initiated at the end of July. There are, therefore, two differentiated actions around the same episode. The pre-procedural investigations study the possible criminal relevance of the leak and the administrative file internally analyzes the eventual action of a member of the fiscal career.

The socialist spokesperson in Les Corts, José Muñoz, has described David Muñoz's words as "very serious" and has demanded clarification on whether the far-right had undue access to information from a procedure related to migrants. The PSPV considers it especially delicate that such data could be used to fuel Vox's discourse against immigration.

The ultra party has tried to downplay the episode since the recording came to light. Its spokesperson, José María Llanos, spoke again this Thursday of "anecdotes and ironies" and a "smokescreen" from the PSOE. Vox initially assured that its deputies were joking, that the information was public and that the mention of "the prosecutor" referred to the Attorney General of the State. The explanation continues to clash with the words spoken by Muñoz before the open microphone, when he expressly stated that he was using privileged information that "nobody" knew.

The investigating prosecutor must now identify the origin of this data, verify if it belonged to a reserved case and clarify if it reached the deputy through an improper communication from the Public Prosecutor's Office.