The Attorney General of the State addresses the Masks case: “I did not show myself against” lowering Aldama's sentence

The State Attorney General, Teresa Peramato, denied this Wednesday having opposed a possible reduction of the penalty request for businessman Víctor de Aldama in the trial for the 'mask case' that is held in the Supreme Court. Upon her arrival at an event organized by the European Public Prosecutor's Office in Madrid, Peramato answered journalists' questions about reports that pointed to alleged internal discrepancies within the Public Prosecutor's Office regarding the businessman's procedural situation.

The Attorney General avoided going into detail about the conversations held with the chief prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, Alejandro Luzón, although she did want to deny part of the information published in recent days. “I did not show myself against”, she stated emphatically when asked about a possible refusal to apply a highly qualified mitigating circumstance of confession to Aldama after his collaboration with Justice. Furthermore, she added that “some issues that are being said do not conform to reality”.

Peramato's statements occurred while Alejandro Luzón presented his final report to the Supreme Court in the trial against the former minister José Luis Ábalos, his former advisor Koldo García and Aldama himself for alleged irregularities in public mask contracts during the pandemic. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office maintains its requests for 24 years in prison for Ábalos, 19 and a half years for Koldo García, and 7 years for the businessman, whom it does recognize collaboration, although not to a sufficient degree to drastically reduce the sentence.

Prosecution sources had already clarified last Monday that the decision on the sentences responded to an ordinary internal process within the Public Prosecutor's Office and denied that there were “orders” or “pressures” from the State Attorney General's Office. The same sources stressed that, although there was legal debate about the possible application of a more beneficial mitigating circumstance for Aldama, finally Anticorruption opted to maintain the initial request for a sentence, considering that the businessman's collaboration did not justify a greater reduction.