The Supreme Court (SC) has rejected the request of former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo García for the trial for the alleged irregularities in the purchase of masks during the pandemic to be held before a popular jury court.
In an order issued this Wednesday, to which Europa Press has had access, the examining magistrate of the so-called ‘Koldo case’, Leopoldo Puente, opposes the request made by Ábalos and later seconded by García, who demanded that the trial be carried out by a jury made up of citizens and not by a professional court.
The former minister also requested the annulment of the orders of abbreviated procedure and opening of oral proceedings already issued against him, in a case in which he faces requests of up to 30 years in prison for the crimes he is accused of in relation to the acquisition of health material during the covid-19 pandemic.
In his resolution, Judge Puente recalls that the law regulating the Jury Court excludes this type of prosecution in the case of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the National Court. In this case, he specifies that the fact that the Supreme Court assumes the investigation and the subsequent phases of the process is only due to the fact that one of the investigated parties has a privileged status, a circumstance that does not alter the type of procedure applicable.
The instructor adds, moreover, that the brief filed by Ábalos himself “rightly” recognizes that the aforamiento modifies the ordinarily competent judicial body, but not the procedure, which is why he rules out both the holding of the trial with a popular jury and the nullity of the resolutions already adopted in the case.
