Álvaro García Ortiz, State Attorney General: “I know what I did, I did not leak any emails” | Spain | EUROtoday

The State Attorney General has taken benefit of his first public look after studying that the Supreme Court will examine him for revealing secrets and techniques to disclaim the best. “I know what I did; Therefore, I am very clear that the result of the investigation can only be one. Where and the collection of evidence corresponds to the Supreme Court, but I know that I did not leak any email,” Álvaro García Ortiz stated in an interview on TVE regarding the crime for which the high court, in an unprecedented decision in democracy , has decided to open an investigation this Wednesday. The Supreme Court has overturned the main thesis that was put forward until now against the public ministry: the dissemination of a press release by the Prosecutor’s Office.

The investigation into García Ortiz will focus on an alleged leak to the media of an email sent to the Prosecutor’s Office by the lawyer of Alberto González Amador, partner of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and accused of tax fraud. In this regard, García Ortiz has indicated that those emails “well more” than 16 or 17 individuals had entry, so far as he is aware of. “Leaks are a cancer that prevents processes from developing normally,” he criticized in a generic means. “I assume that we made a press release, for which I am solely responsible, to deny a hoax,” he harassed once more, after which instantly acknowledged that: “It makes no sense to make a press release and at the same time spread some hoaxes.” .

García Ortiz has insisted on clarifying that precisely the press release has been left out of the case: “The crux of the matter is not the press release from the Prosecutor’s Office, but an email in which one party reveals another party to give false information.” . In effect, the Supreme Court has excluded from the investigation the press release issued by the public ministry to deny the hoaxes that were being launched by Díaz Ayuso’s entourage about the actions of the Prosecutor’s Office. On May 7, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) decided to accept the complaint from Ayuso’s boyfriend, which led to the opening of a case against the Prosecutor’s Office, justifying it on the basis that the dissemination of the controversial press release could supposedly imply revelation of secrets and that could include data unknown to public opinion, although in reality they had already appeared in the media.

García Ortiz has justified his decision not to resign despite the fact that the two conservative associations of prosecutors have requested it – but not the progressive one -, ensuring that it is not the first time they have done so, but that, nevertheless, “this case It’s totally different, significantly sufficient to make an observation [el comunicado difundido este miércoles por García Ortiz en el que descartaba dimitir]come to a public media outlet and convene the Board of Court Prosecutors and the Fiscal Council tomorrow [jueves]”.

Precisely relating to the Board of Prosecutors, which García Ortiz has recalled that he himself has convened to present “explanations”, and concerning the chance {that a} good variety of prosecutors will ask for his or her resignation at that assembly, he has turned to his superior hierarchy to make sure that Nor would he give in: “They are not colleagues, I am the attorney general of the State of this country, and the Board of Prosecutors, with all due respect, is the advisory body of the attorney general of the State,” he harassed. “I will hear some opinions that will be dissenting, harsh, but the State Attorney General does not submit to the Board of Court Prosecutors,” he stated bluntly.

“Leaving or resigning has no turning back and we also have to think about that when we are at the beginning of a path that can end somewhere else,” stated García Ortiz, who has spoken more often than not within the third particular person to confer with him. himself as head of the general public ministry, thus pointing to the chance that, ultimately, he’ll emerge unscathed from the judicial course of. Also relating to his refusal to go away the place he has held since August 2022, he has stated that he assumes “all the decisions” he makes, however specifying that he’s “a person very well advised by a very competent team of prosecutors and also non-prosecutors who they support” his choices as head of the State Attorney General’s Office. At one other time he claimed to have “a feeling of helplessness”, which he clarified: “I do not feel defenseless in the judicial sense of the term but I believe that the figure of the State Attorney General does not have the resources to respond to all the insinuations.”

The State Attorney General, who this Wednesday has been supported by the 2 forces of the Government within the face of the requests for resignation from PP and Vox, has turned a part of the interview into the protection that he stays in workplace as a result of that’s how he understands that higher defend your establishment. “It has to be a strong institution that resists the onslaught of any attack it may receive. It has to be a tsunami that overthrows a state attorney general,” García Ortiz emphasised in a peaceful tone, though he was damage by what he described as “persecutions,” with out explicitly mentioning their authors. He regretted that, after being appointed by the Executive: “Neither the 50 nor the 100 days were respected [de tregua] because I was already a false cover for a media outlet. I believe that the responsibility of the position must support these persecutions. Prosecutors handle very sensitive material and a lot of information. If I wanted to harm a certain political spectrum, I have plenty of information, which of course I will never use. The responsibility of the state attorney general is to remain neutral; That is why it cannot go out to respond to political attacks, and it is very easy for it to be the target of attacks from different sectors,” he explained.

For García Ortiz, his is not a case of lawfare or judicialization of politics. “I have the utmost respect for what the Supreme Court may do or say, which is the premise of all this. Those of us who embody the institutions (…) cannot say anything else.” And as to whether his imminent indictment – ​​the prosecutor has specified that, technically, he is still “neither investigated nor charged” – has anything to do with the disparity between the Prosecutor’s Office and decisions of the Supreme Court regarding, for example, the question of unconstitutionality. of the amnesty law that the high court has elevated to the Constitutional Court, García Ortiz has responded: “I think not.” “I claim the autonomous role of the Prosecutor’s Office with respect to any magistrate in this country,” he stressed, “no one should bother [por ello]; “The Prosecutor’s Office has the correct to current its personal theses, which is able to then be preferred kind of.” “Why will we imagine so little in a constitutional determine legitimized by a authorities mandate (…)? It is an evil that we have now suffered and suffered, and we have now not recognized find out how to clarify it nicely,” the pinnacle of the general public ministry has requested.