Ábalos denies Aldama's payments and the trial of the 'mask case' is left for judgment: “¡10,000 euros a month to distribute, how cheap I am!”

The former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos closed this Wednesday his intervention in the trial of the mask case flatly denying having received payments from the businessman Víctor de Aldama. The case, focused on alleged illegal commissions related to mask contracts during the pandemic, was adjourned for judgment in the Supreme Court after 14 sessions and more than 70 witnesses. “¡10,000 euros monthly to distribute, how cheap I am!”, ironized the former minister during his turn for a final statement.

Ábalos assured before the magistrates that a "predetermined case" and an "inquisitorial process" have been pursued against him, insisting that no evidence exists to prove the alleged cash payments described by Aldama. "I'm staking the little life I have left, which isn't too much either," affirmed the former socialist leader.

According to the accusation, Aldama would have delivered together with Koldo García monthly amounts of up to 10,000 euros to the then minister in exchange for alleged dealings related to public contracts. Ábalos completely rejected that account and even questioned the way in which, according to Aldama, the payments occurred. “Who can imagine that? That they give me money in hand in front of third parties and take a photo of me to remember that moment,” he declared before the court.

The former minister also defended that the attributed amounts lack sense taking into account the political and economic weight of the Ministry of Transport. “If one wants business opportunities, they are brutal, but not for 10,000 euros nor to pay for a week in a chalet”, he stated, in reference to the accusations about rentals and other alleged considerations linked to the plot.

During his speech, Ábalos also questioned that the mask purchases made by the Ministry of Interior were not part of the case despite having been carried out, according to him, “with the same supplier, the same system, and the same connection” as those of Transportes. The former minister specifically mentioned Soluciones de Gestión, one of the companies investigated for the contracts awarded during the pandemic.

Furthermore, the former leader of the PSOE harshly criticized the “parallel trials” that arose around the case, assuring that they seek to “poison and alter the truth”. He also defended the hirings in public companies of Jéssica Rodríguez and Claudia Montes, and demanded to recover the seized electronic devices, denying possessing the “immense material” to which investigators point.