• Justice The judge charges the administrator of Podemos with an electoral crime for payments to the Chavista consultancy Neurona

  • The financing of the party The Police conclude that the Neurona company tried to deceive the judge by justifying its work for Podemos

The judge in charge of the so-called

Neurona case

has acknowledged having "improperly included" the name of the former leader of Podemos and former Vice President of the Government, Pablo Iglesias, among those investigated in the procedure in which the 363,000-euro contract that Podemos is investigated signed with

Neurona

for the campaign for the general elections of April 2019.

In an order, to which Europa Press has had access, Judge

Juan José Escalonilla

has specified that Iglesias is not a party to the procedure and that it was included "improperly in the heading of the resolutions", for which he has ordered "correct" the error at the request of the defense of the former communication secretary of the party investigated in this case,

Juan Manuel del Olmo

.

The error in question was that in several resolutions related to the

Neurona case

issued by the court directed by Escalonilla, the name of Iglesias was listed at the top, where all those investigated and their respective attorneys appear.

The former leader of Podemos began to appear on said list without having been formally charged in the procedure.

Although in the framework of the 'Neurona case' a separate piece was opened for the alleged collection by Iglesias of the procedural costs in cases where it was the party that paid lawyers and solicitors, the former leader of Podemos did not reach be accused and finally the judge in charge of the investigations - the one of the

Investigating Court number 45 of Madrid

- agreed to file the investigation considering that there were no criminal indications.

For its part, in the main piece -relating to the 363,000-euro contract signed between the party and the consultant that gives its name to the procedure- Podemos has appeared as being investigated as a legal entity, as well as various formation charges, but Iglesias did not has been one of them.

The investigation will not be extended

On the sidelines, in the letter of February 9, the head of the

Investigating Court Number 42 of Madrid

has also ruled on the request that the popular accusation that Vox exercises made on January 23 to extend the period of investigation.

The judge recalled that in July of last year he issued an order in which he agreed that the investigation would not be extended, for which reason he considered the request of those from Santiago Abascal to be inadmissible.

On that occasion, Escalonilla refused to extend the term because he concluded that there were no more procedures to carry out.

At the moment, the expert report that the judge commissioned more than a year ago on the costs of the services provided by Neurona to Podemos is the only proceeding that remains pending in the investigation.

It is expected that once said report is provided to the procedure, the head of the Court decides whether to file or, in view of new evidence contained in said document, to resume the investigation.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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