Koldo's lawyer defends herself against Carmen Pano's accusations: she accused her of bribing her with 50,000 euros to manage her statement in the Supreme Court

One of the indications of crime included in the order of Judge Santiago Pedraz, who is handling the ‘Leire Díez’ case, is the bribery by Koldo García’s lawyer, Leticia de la Hoz, to businesswoman Carmen Pano. According to the document, De la Hoz allegedly tried to bribe Pano with 50,000 euros to manipulate her statement before the Supreme Court so that she would deny having brought money in bags to the PSOE headquarters. However, the lawyer has submitted a document with several documentary proofs and recordings that could attest that the accusation is not true.

The accusation is not supported by the documentation provided by the lawyer to the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard—to which ‘Cadena SER’ has had access. The version publicly disseminated on March 10 was accompanied by an audio in which De la Hoz prevented Pano from accessing her office, a conversation that was presented as proof of this alleged bribery attempt.

However, according to the aforementioned media, the audios and WhatsApp messages provided by the lawyer show a different context. The meeting between the two would have taken place a month earlier at Pano's initiative, who was looking for a buyer for several companies in the hydrocarbon sector. Among them was Gran Zufaira, a company about which the lawyer detected possible irregularities related to alleged VAT fraud after carrying out the appropriate checks.

The information indicates that, upon being warned of these suspicions, Pano would have acknowledged the situation and proposed continuing with the sale operation, also suggesting receiving an advance commission of 10,000 euros due to her economic difficulties. De la Hoz refused to participate in the transaction, considering that it could be an illicit operation, and days later, she learned that Pano had transferred information about her to a digital media outlet.

The 'SER' highlights that all the documentation provided to the UCO revolves exclusively around negotiations concerning hydrocarbon companies and contains no references to money deliveries at the socialist headquarters in Ferraz or to an alleged payment to alter testimonies. Furthermore, the analyzed conversations took place entirely during the month of February, and the relationship between the two broke down before the information about the alleged bribery was published, a circumstance that, according to the network, reinforces the version offered by the lawyer.