The judge sends former counselor Prada to the bench for prevarication and embezzlement in the City of Justice

The former Minister of Justice and Interior of the Community of Madrid

and five other people will sit on the bench of the National Court for the alleged illegalities committed in relation to the project of the City of Justice.

Judge José de la Mata has concluded the investigation and considers that there are sufficient indications of crimes of prevarication, fraud against public administrations and embezzlement of public funds.

The magistrate explains that those investigated, led by Alfredo Prada -who ultimately made all the decisions- "reached an agreement with different people and businesses to irregularly award different CJM [Justice Campus] contracts in their favor. criminal plan and put in place various devices to carry them out. "

Prada will be accompanied on the bench by

,

,

and

, who occupied, respectively, the positions of Technical General Director, Technical Deputy General Director, Financial Director and Security Director of the Campus of Justice, with the advice of Félix José García de Castro.

At the same time, he files the case for two people (María Lourdes Manovel and Paloma Mateo Martín).

The judge indicates that Prada and the investigated executives "substantially corrupted the procedure for awarding CJM contracts, substantially affecting its operations and economic results, thus undermining the legal rights protected by the criminal offense of misappropriation of public funds."

"In this case we are not dealing with authorities or officials who have stolen money from the administration for their personal gain to the detriment of the public patrimony: the conduct perpetrated here affects the operating system of a public entity, which has been deteriorated, damaged and impaired , both in its impartiality, probity and prestige, as in its effectiveness and in its patrimonial integrity (to the point of having suffered damages to the public treasury of hundreds of millions of euros) ", affirms the judge.

As reported by the Hearing, among the allegedly irregular contracts the document mentions "Integrated Project Management and the construction of the urbanization and the construction of Phase 1 of the Madrid Justice Campus (2007)" or the "Drafting of the project and optional management of the works of the Provincial Court and Superior Court of Justice, phase 2 urbanization works of the Madrid justice campus (2006) ".

In addition, the "Technical assistance for the development of specialized consulting services in the design and construction phases of the Superior Court of Justice and the Provincial Court of the Madrid Justice Campus (2007)", the "Edition and distribution of the book Foster & Partners ", the" Creation of the representative brand and communication strategy of the Campus de la Justicia de Madrid project ", the" Legal advice service "or the" Integrated management of the project and construction of the urbanization and construction of phase 2 of Madrid Justice Campus ", among others.

In his order, the judge explains that the analysis of the actions of the investigated persons reflects that "they were perfectly aware of the illegality of their actions" and pointed out that they did not elaborate the adequate justification of the needs that the contracts were to meet, they ignored the Insufficiencies and defects of the specifications, they ignored the insufficiencies and defects of the technical valuation reports, in multiple cases they made arbitrary and unjustified valuation proposals or that repeatedly dispensed with any contracting procedure, among other alleged irregularities.

Prada in front

De la Mata highlights the personal and direct intervention and the absolute pre-eminence that, during the first phase of the Campus of Justice in which he served as President, Alfredo Prada had in decision-making in the different hiring processes.

"From the outset, all the contracts that had to do with advertising and communication (which together reach more than 5 million euros in contracting), were materially subtracted from the company CJM itself. These contracts were not decided in CJM, where they were limited to execute the orders that came from the Vice Presidency and Council of the CAM, that is, from Prada Presa, limiting the CJM staff to carry out such decisions ".

In fact, the instructor continues, the CJM personnel who dealt with these areas were not even at the CJM headquarters, but rather at the Vice Presidency or the Council, integrated along with the rest of the Prada Cabinet personnel.

In all these contracts on advertising, communication and propaganda, all the decisions about the objectives to be achieved, contracts to be signed, companies to be invited and the winning company were taken by him personally, being himself, in most cases, who also signed. award decisions and contracts.

"Even so, the most relevant thing is not this, but rather that the communication and advertising contracts did not constitute, as was logical and due, the communication component of the Madrid City of Justice Program, which was the objective of CJM, nor were they integrated in CJM's strategy, "he adds.

Artifices

The judge's order indicates that the investigated persons, "led of course by Prada Presa, who ultimately made all the decisions, reached an agreement with different persons and merchants to irregularly award different CJM contracts in their favor, they drew up a plan criminal and put in place different devices to carry them out. "

This is appreciated, indicates the instructor in different cases, among which the contracting of the consultants Buro Happold and Gleeds Ibérica for the basic project phase of the Foster & Partners contract is highlighted. Drafting of the Project for the building of the future headquarters of the Provincial Court and of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid.

The situation is the same when hiring The Bank, for 40,000 British pounds, to produce a video.

In this case, says the judge, it is operated in the same way: to hide this hiring, hide the payment and avoid the launch of a bidding process that would allow a balanced price to be reached as a result of free competition, they again applied the method to pay these services to Foster & Partners, so that this firm, in turn, paid it to this communication agency.

In addition, there is a good set of contracts, on the other hand, in which those investigated were concluded with different business groups to set an arbitrary price for services and obtain their award to the arbitrarily chosen company through the trick of presenting budgets by companies. belonging to the same business group, so that competition and free competition did not exist.

In other cases, explains the magistrate, those investigated divided the contracts, always with the same purpose of being able to award the contracts to the company predefined by the managers.

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