Brussels, (EFE) brother of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
“The procedure has been closed due to insufficient evidence of the commission of a crime,” the European Fraud Prosecutor reported in a statement, in which it stated that the decision was made with the agreement of the Spanish representative in the European Prosecutor’s Office. , Concepción Sabadell, who was also the former Anti-Corruption prosecutor in the Gürtel case.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office does not prove a “disproportionate” price
“In particular, it has not been proven that the price paid for the masks was disproportionate given the quality of the material offered and delivered or that it had suffered an undue increase derived from the intervention of people outside the company. Finally, it has been proven that the transportation was paid for by the winning company and not by the Community of Madrid,” said the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
During the investigation process, the national prosecutors assigned to this community institution have taken statements, analyzed and verified documentation, checked the authenticity of the photographs of the masks delivered, collected reports from the Civil Guard, worked with an expert and requested information from the Tax Agency or the Madrid Health Service of the Community of Madrid (SERMAS).
European competence in research
In the spring of 2022, this case opened a fracture between the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Spanish State and the European one, which disputed jurisdiction over this investigation: the General Prosecutor of the State decided that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office should investigate the contract instead of referring the investigations to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which claimed them.
Based in Luxembourg, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office considers that it has “preferential jurisdiction” to investigate “all crimes related” to possible fraud against the financial interests of the European Union and claimed the case to avoid “duplication”.
The European Prosecutor’s Office requested the investigation of the case before the possible commission of a crime of embezzlement of European funds in that contract, for which Ayuso’s brother received 55,000 euros, and finally maintained its investigation into the facts that affect the financial interests of the EU but not on the facts that concern the functioning of the Spanish public administration.