Judge and prosecutor request minutes of meetings of former Plus Ultra directors with the Sepi regarding the rescue of 53 million

The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama, in coordination with the Anti-Corruption prosecutor Elena Lorente, have asked the accused former directors of Plus Ultra, Julio Martínez Sola and Roberto Roselli, to provide the minutes of the meetings they held with Sepi before the Government agreed to grant the rescue of 53 million euros of public aid to the airline.

As EL MUNDO reported yesterday, both the instructor and the representative of the Public Ministry have decided to delve into the conditions that surrounded the controversial rescue.

Legal sources consulted explain that the minutes of the meetings with Sepi have been requested, as well as various banking documentation and documents from different companies.

The lawyers of the former directors, in accordance with the collaboration strategy that they have decided to establish with Justice, undertook to collect all the requested information and provide it to the court in the future.

Different sources present in the statement of former CEO Roselli also add that the former director's responses have reflected Sepi's poor control over the real financial situation of Plus Ultra. At that time, the person investigated was financially responsible for the airline.

Part of the interrogation has focused on the credits that Plus Ultra had received to clean up its financial situation and thus be able to claim the ransom of 53 million. Roselli has declared that Sepi did not investigate these credits, nor did it control where the rescue money was destined despite the fact that the loans originated in tax havens and are now under suspicion.

Another part of the questions asked by the judge and the prosecutor revolved around the legality of the rescue itself, as Anti-Corruption had done on Monday when interrogating former president Martínez Sola.

Venezuelan control

The prosecutor once again put the focus yesterday on the fact that the Venezuelan Rodolfo Reyes and his wife, the Spanish Aurora López, came to own 64% of the company. Investigators suspect that Plus Ultra did not meet the legal requirements to be rescued by the Council of Ministers.

Specifically, they seek to know how a company controlled by foreign capital was able to access aid from the Strategic Companies Solvency Support Fund during the Covid pandemic. Not in vain did prosecutor Lorente even ask the former CEO of Plus Ultra if he was aware of how long López had Spanish nationality, to which Roselli responded no.

On the other hand, the former CEO declared yesterday before Judge Calama that "the Zapatero Group" received a 1% commission for interceding for the granting of the rescue. The investigator thus ratified the content of the letter sent in July to the National Court, as well as Monday's statement along the same lines from the former president of the company, Julio Martínez Sola.

Roselli explained that it was a "successful" commission that would be disbursed if Plus Ultra received aid of 53 million euros, something that finally happened in March 2021. He added that Plus Ultra knew a few days in advance that it was going to receive public aid.