From left: Juliano Medeiros, Pablo Iglesias, Ione Belarra, Irene Montero and Juan Carlos Monedero at the graduation ceremony of the Fall University of Podemos last November in Madrid. MARISCAL (EFE)
The investigations into the Neurona case have another surprise in store for the final phase. The advisor Aleix Sanmartín, who worked for the Andalusian President Juan Manuel Moreno (PP) and for the PSOE, applied to produce the key report of the investigation. Judge Juan José Escalonilla has been looking for more than a year for an expert to draw up this document, which will have to calculate the price of the work done by the Mexican company Neurona to Podemos in the April 2019 general election, to compare it with the 363,000 who paid for the party? The instructor himself made an application to Sanmartín last November, but the agent says he didn’t respond “until a few days ago”.
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After receiving the refusal of half a dozen professionals to take on the task, Judge Escalonilla “ordered the 4 to prepare the expert report” and ordered them to be contacted “so that they say whether they accept the position to prepare the expert report”. Among these six was that of Aleix Sanmartín, one of the experts who helped Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla to achieve an absolute majority in Andalusia in 2022 and who developed a tool for the PSOE published by EL PAÍS.
Speaking to this newspaper, Sanmartín explains that he received an email from the court offering him the job, but that he has a lot of work to do at the moment and cannot reply. However, a few days ago he did: “I responded by saying that I apologize for not being able to respond earlier and that I am now off work and that I am available for whatever they tell me. As he adds, he has not yet received a “response” or “notification” to this communication, which he sent to Escalonilla.
On his website, Sanmartín describes himself as a “political strategist”. As previously mentioned, he has worked for frontline leaders such as Andrés Manuel López Obrador, current President of Mexico; José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Tabaré Vázquez, former Presidents of Spain and Uruguay respectively. “In Spain he designed the strategy that made Juan Manuel Moreno President of Andalusia. He has also worked with the President of Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara; with the President of the Region of Murcia, Fernando López Miras; and with the President of the Valencian Community, Ximo Puig,” the website reads.
Waiting for the expert
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The judge opened the Neurona case in the summer of 2020 after receiving a complaint from a former Podemos lawyer – José Manuel Calvente – in conflict with the leadership. Escalonilla then accused high-ranking officials of founding and the party itself as a legal entity, and later conducted up to ten lines of investigation, including into alleged bonuses, additional costs in the work of the headquarters or the baptized as a nanny case. The derivative focused on an alleged crime of unfair administration for the alleged use of Podemos workers to look after the daughter of current Minister for Equality Irene Montero and former government vice president and former party leader Pablo Iglesias.
To date, nine of these lines of investigation have been completed. Only the main part remains alive, dealing with Podemos’ relationship with Mexican consulting firm Neurona. At first, the judge suspected that the formation paid the consultant €363,000 for services it never provided. But after proving the existence of work by the Latin American company, Judge Escalonilla turned the investigation around and is now investigating whether the price paid to Neurona was excessive. In return, he wants the report to be commissioned in order to calculate how high the costs should be.
But getting that analysis has given the judge a headache, who has been trying to push it since November 2021. The judge considers it a key piece, but both prosecutors and Podemos reiterate it won’t do much good. “We understand that training can be completed with those providers it deems appropriate and it is possible that costs cannot be reliably determined,” the public ministry said. “Prices are not prices or tariffs […] Producing specific products is not the same as having a complete campaign team that can cover all areas and is available 24 hours a day. [horas al día] / 7 [días a la semana] […] Not all offices, nor all professionals, ask the same for their services,” the left-wing political force added.
On July 27, the judge already closed the investigation period for the case, but has not yet decided whether to file it or prosecute anyone. As he indicated at the time, he will not do so until he receives the report for which he is seeking an author.
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