The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has emphasized that "for the moment" it is still unknown "under what circumstances" former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero obtained the jewels seized by the Police during the search of his office, and has underlined "his right to justify what he deems appropriate" in relation to said items.
This is stated in a document to which Europa Press has had access, in which the prosecutor responds to the appeal filed by Zapatero against the decision of the National Court judge José Luis Calama, the investigating judge in the 'Plus Ultra case'. The magistrate agreed to also ask him about the jewels in his statement and not limit the interrogation to the airline's rescue during the pandemic, even though the former leader had requested more time to prepare his defense on this first point.
"For the moment, we do not know under what circumstances Zapatero obtained these jewels and, therefore, it is obvious that the criminal typology applicable to the act will occur when the investigation is complete on this point," Anticorruption states in its report.
The Public Prosecutor's Office also insists that Zapatero maintains "the right to justify what he deems appropriate about said jewels, as well as to make the statements he considers about such effects," making it clear that he will be able to offer the explanations he deems appropriate at the procedural moment he chooses.
The judge dismissed the former president's request, so on June 17 he was finally interrogated about both Plus Ultra and the jewels. However, he availed himself of his right not to testify regarding the latter and expressed his willingness to do so at a later stage of the proceedings.
The Prosecutor's Office specifies that Zapatero "therefore availed himself of one of the rights he has as an investigated person," and therefore, in its opinion, "no right has been violated" during the processing of the case.
In the same vein, it maintains that "there has been no lack of defense in denying the suspension of the statement" regarding the jewels, since they were not "new facts," but rather a "provisional legal classification" of elements already incorporated into the investigation.
In the separate file relating to the jewels, preliminarily valued at 1.3 million euros, Judge Calama maintains Zapatero as investigated for alleged tax and smuggling offenses, pending the completion of the investigation.
Anticorruption emphasizes that "there was nothing that did not already appear in the proceedings before the summons of the investigated person" and clarifies that the opening of the separate piece is not due to the appraisal of the jewels, but to the finding of the same, "whose temporal and geographical origin is yet to be determined".