Judge Ruiz Tobarra rejects Mazón's defense and points to Salomé Pradas as responsible

The judge investigating the Dana case, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, and the former president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, continue with their swords raised. In the particular fight that they maintain from a distance - and intensified after the refusal of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community to charge the politician - the last word has been put in writing by the magistrate.

In an order notified this Friday, Ruiz Tobarra responds to the recent brief presented in the Catarroja court by Mazón's lawyer, in which it was argued that the delay of the ES-Alert had no direct relationship with the 232 deaths caused by the damage. Now, the judge warns: "The exculpatory thesis of Mr. Carlos Mazón on which his defense is based becomes inculpatory with respect to Ms. Salomé Pradas."

Mazón's lawyer, in fact, insisted that the former president was not a "guarantor" of the security of citizens in the event of an emergency, which inevitably places his former Interior Minister, investigated in the case together with the former regional Secretary of Emergencies, Emilio Argüeso, in the eye of the hurricane. The judge, in this sense, recriminates the former president's exculpatory story: "It is stated that it did not matter exactly whether to send said message (avoid travel) or not to send any, as deaths would have occurred in most cases."

For this reason, the judge continues with this thread to challenge Mazón to deviate from the procedure "if he believes that there is nothing that can be attributed to him," according to the document. In fact, the Valencia Court endorsed Mazón's appearance in the case, after the judge herself rejected it after summoning him as a witness. The appearance of the former president in the case, who cannot be charged either as he is certified, prevents the magistrate from calling him as a witness.

In her order, the magistrate does not avoid remembering - in a reproachful tone - that Mazón has not only evaded the statement in court. Nor has she voluntarily contributed her WhatsApp messages, as, for example, Pradas herself did. A movement that turned the cause around and put Mazón's then chief of staff in a compromising situation, who asked Pradas not to confine the population minutes before the ES-Alert was sent.

"It is unknown whether these messages are all those in the possession of Ms. Salomé Pradas; nor have any messages been provided by Mr. José Manuel Cuenca, since they were deleted, nor has any message been voluntarily provided by Mr. Carlos Mazón," laments the judge, who criticizes that the letter from Mazón's lawyer is actually an "extensive request for dismissal, addressed to a body that is not competent, and formulated by a person who does not hold the status of investigated."

And compared to the thesis of Mazón's defense that the former president is being the subject of a prospective investigation, "it is a hollow statement," in the words of the judge, "without endorsement or mention of any diligence that has such a character." The Public Prosecutor's Office, the judge reminds him, "has already rejected the possibility of annulment of any proceedings that could support the indictment."