The former president of Plus Ultra Julio Martínez Solá confirmed this Monday before judge José Luis Calama that the airline paid a 1% commission to get the former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to influence in favor of the rescue of the airline. As he advanced in a letter dated July 20, Solá has ratified this Monday the payment of around 530,000 euros to companies of Zapatero's front man, Julio Martínez Martínez. However, he affirms that he never knew what specific tasks Zapatero was going to carry out to promote the granting of aid, beyond "accompaniment" efforts. According to legal sources, Solá has expressed before Judge José Luis Calama that Plus Ultra paid the bribe "in the face of doubt" about what Zapatero could facilitate.
Martínez Solá was not the only one to point out the former president's influence peddling last July. On those same dates, both Martínez Martínez and the former CEO of Plus Ultra Roberto Roselli – who shares defense with Solá – exposed Zapatero. The reason that led the judge to call the former president of Plus Ultra to testify again was precisely Zapatero's accusation and the document presented by his defense.
Martínez Solá, represented by Javier Sánchez-Vera, told the judge this Monday how the Plus Ultra airline approached the "Zapatero group." He has expressed that he contacted the former leader through lawyer Manuel Fajardo, following instructions from whoever was the largest shareholder of Plus Ultra, Rodolfo Reyes.
First, Solá contacted Fajardo and explained that the airline had an "imperative need" to receive financial help due to the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had had on the business. This is what he said in an interrogation lasting more than two hours, in which he answered the judge, the prosecutor Elena Llorente and his defense, but not the popular accusation.
According to Solá's testimony, Fajardo raised the possibility of Rodríguez Zapatero helping. The next day, the former president of Plus Ultra received a call from a hidden number. It was José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who asked him about the situation of the airline and told him that his people would contact him.
According to the versions of Solá and Martínez Martínez himself, coinciding on this point, from that moment on Zapatero's front man acted as the communication channel between the airline and the former president. "Solá would not meet Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero in person until 2024, at the Santo Mauro Hotel, although she did have the notion that he was behind the matter through references from close people and intermediaries," stated the letter sent in July by the former president of Plus Ultra, who this Monday ratified that information. According to legal sources, the person under investigation has said that Plus Ultra did not "monitor" Zapatero's influence efforts, but was confident that they would bear fruit.
As Solá has explained, Martínez Martínez was in charge of communicating that in exchange for the former president's help, fees would be charged through a "boutique finance." These fees "were still charged despite the absence of work," Solá's lawyer noted in his letter. According to the former president of the airline, from that conversation with Martínez Martínez, the company knew that it had to pay a bribe.
This is recorded in one of the telephone messages intercepted by the UDEF, in which Solá himself recounted the conversation about boutique finance and said: "so that's where the bite will come from."
As Solá has explained, Plus Ultra signed a contract with a company owned by Martínez Martínez —Idella Consulenza Estratégica—, under which the payment to this company of 1% plus VAT of the aid that the airline obtained from SEPI was stipulated. Solá states that the contract was neither formalized nor executed, but 1% was paid through three companies belonging to Zapatero's front man: Analisis Relevante SL, Voli Analítico SL and Iot Domotic Europe SL. In addition, there were "other payments in kind" to Martínez Martínez, who benefited from "very numerous business class flights" without paying for them. The set of all these transactions yields a total sum of 530,000 euros, that is, 1% of the 53 million ransom.
The mystery that neither Solá, nor Martínez Martínez nor Roselli have been able to clear up for the moment is who Zapatero deployed his influence to ensure that the aid was granted. What Solá has explained is that Camilo Ibrahim told him in February 2021 that he had met with Zapatero and he had conveyed that the operation was progressing correctly.
This was stated in the letter sent by Solá's defense last July: "Plus Ultra never had reliable evidence of the specific actions carried out to influence or favor the granting of the rescue to Plus Ultra by the SEPI, but the truth is that, as a desperate measure, it was assumed that it should contract with Mr. Martínez Martínez for this purpose, aware that it had a relationship with Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero."
