BEGOÑA Gomez, the spouse of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has denied allegations of corruption and influence-peddling linked to her educating enterprise throughout her first testimony in court docket on Wednesday since an investigation started in April.
The proceedings are a part of an investigation into whether or not Gomez used her place because the PM’s spouse to illegally get software program financed by non-public firms and initially meant for Madrid’s Complutense College whereas she labored there- bypassing a public bidding course of.
She has not been charged with any crimes and entered and left the Madrid court docket by automobile via an underground storage to keep away from the press that was ready for her.
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She beforehand invoked her proper to silence in July in reference to the case.
Within the closed-door listening to, Gomez solely answered questions put by her lawyer Antonio Camacho, a former inside minister.
“My shopper has testified, as she’s wished to because the very starting, as a result of she has nothing to cover. If she didn’t testify earlier than it’s as a result of there was a scarcity of definition about what was being investigated,” Camacho instructed reporters after the listening to.
He stated Gomez had ‘defined that she by no means knew in regards to the existence of those public bidding processes’ and that she ‘by no means intervened in any respect’ nor was conscious when these have been awarded.
She additionally stated that any conferences she might have held to debate the college course within the official prime minister’s residence have been because of mobility restrictions in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, so she needed to meet individuals at her residence.
The case was introduced in a personal grievance by Manos Limpias, an anti-corruption activist group led by Miguel Bernad, a lawyer and politician who has stood as a candidate for a far-right occasion in European elections.
Gomez’s look is the excessive level of per week of court docket hearings linked with Sanchez and his authorities, the opposite centred on the allegedly fraudulent procurement of masks in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The businessman suspected of being on the coronary heart of the case on Monday accused Jose Luis Abalos, Sanchez’s former transport minister and shut ally, of accepting profitable kickbacks in trade for the contracts.
Abalos’s former adviser, one other key suspect, appeared in court docket on Tuesday, whereas a member of employees at authorities headquarters accused of really working for Gomez is because of testify on Friday.
