The Prosecutor's Office supports Begoña Gómez's appeal against the withdrawal of her passport and accuses Peinado of copying the arguments of the ultra-conservative association Hazte Oír

The Prosecutor's Office has shown its support for the Provincial Court of Madrid to process the appeal filed by Begoña Gómez against Judge Juan Carlos Peinado's decision to withdraw her passport. In this regard, according to Cadena SER, the Public Prosecutor's Office has sent a letter in which it responds to the subsequent report prepared by the magistrate to defend the legality of his decision.

In that document, Peinado insisted that the presence of escorts with Gómez could facilitate an eventual departure from the country and added a new reference to support his position: the case of former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who left Italy for Tunisia in 1994 when he was being investigated for corruption.

However, the Prosecutor's Office considers that this comparison lacks consistency. The letter recalls that Craxi no longer held government responsibilities when he left and highlights that this example had been previously raised by the popular accusation exercised by the far-right association Hazte Oír.

"The resolution adopting the measure did not echo this argument, which is now being forcibly recovered in an attempt to gather arguments in the absence and insufficiency of those he used," the prosecutor stated. Likewise, the letter concludes that it is a "singular and rather anecdotal precedent, inasmuch as no line of similarity is drawn between both cases, and the link and ease that the affected party might have to settle in a third country are still not analyzed."

Airline tickets to London

The defense of the wife of the President of the Government, Begoña Gómez, has appealed the latest request from magistrate Juan Carlos Peinado in which he required her to provide proof that she only traveled with her passport to London for her daughter's graduation. In this regard, Gómez has handed over the travel tickets and reminded him that the United Kingdom no longer stamps passports, according to 'elDiario.es'.

Her defense, Antonio Camacho, has conveyed to Peinado – according to the document accessed by the aforementioned media – that his latest request is "a diabolical proof". Likewise, he has stated that the law establishes that it is the judge who must prove guilt.

“Proving something that did not happen, when that something is not concretized in a specific and determined act or place, constitutes what procedural doctrine and jurisprudence call probatio diabólica: the requirement of an impossible or disproportionately difficult proof that, by its very nature, no justiciable can reasonably satisfy,” writes Camacho according to 'elDiario.es'.

The controversial judge returned from vacation and the first decision he made was to request from the wife of the Prime Minister a five-day period for her to justify that she simply used her passport to travel to London to attend her daughter's graduation. Otherwise, she could face a crime of breach of precautionary measure.

The magistrate argues that since there are no entry or exit stamps in the passport, she must provide some proof that she only traveled to London and warns that if it were otherwise, she could face a crime of breach of precautionary measure.

Awaiting the decision of trial by popular jury

On the other hand, the Provincial Court of Madrid met on Monday to analyze the appeals filed by both the Prosecutor's Office and the defenses against two of the most relevant decisions adopted by judge Juan Carlos Peinado in the investigation of Begoña Gómez. Specifically, the court reviewed the order that agreed to the opening of oral trial and the resolution that attributed the prosecution of the case to a jury court. In this regard,   

The deliberation was held behind closed doors and was assumed by five magistrates of the entire section 23, given the importance of the issues raised. Likewise, they evaluated an appeal filed by the popular prosecution against the judge's decision to dismiss the accusation of professional intrusion, and another related to a possible separation of the popular prosecution led by Hazte Oír.

The decision comes at a key moment in the procedure, after Peinado sent Begoña Gómez and her advisor, Cristina Álvarez, to trial for alleged crimes of corruption in business, influence peddling, misappropriation, and embezzlement. Also involved in the same case is businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, who will have to answer for the first two crimes.

Begoña Gómez hands over her passport

Begoña Gómez went this Sunday to the Plaza Castilla courts to return her passport to the controversial judge Juan Carlos Peinado, after her trip to London for her daughter's graduation. However, the magistrate who had to carry out the resolution on Gómez's authorization to travel to the NATO summit in Turkey, Antonio Viejo, denied the request.