New complaint by the partner of President Isabel Díaz Ayuso against public figures and entities as a result of her tax fraud case, and there are already 12. Businessman Alberto González Amador is now targeting the spokesperson for Más Madrid in the regional Assembly, Manuela Bergerot, for calling him a “criminal,” according to The Debate has advanced this Thursday and Bergerot herself later revealed. Amador has presented a conciliation demand before the courts of Madrid, the obligatory step prior to a complaint for injury to the right to honor. He demands 20,000 euros, in addition to a rectification in the same media where Bergerot expressed himself: the program Good morning of Telemadrid and the social network according to an email from his lawyer to the Prosecutor’s Office that has been published by the media.
Bergerot thus joins a growing list of politicians and other senior officials against whom Amador has taken action following statements about his judicial situation. Among them are President Pedro Sánchez, four ministers – Félix Bolaños, María Jesús Montero, Diana Morant and Isabel Rodríguez -, the spokesperson for Más Madrid in the capital’s City Council, Rita Maestre, the socialist deputy in Congress José Zaragoza, and the PSOE communication secretary Ion Antolín. In addition, a complaint has been filed against the PSOE and Más Madrid as political entities. All these initiatives are based on statements considered harmful to their right to honor. Added to them is his complaint for revealing secrets against the Prosecutor’s Office, which has led to the indictment of the attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, and the chief prosecutor of Madrid, María Pilar Rodríguez.
According to a review of journalistic information from recent months, Amador demands 100,000 euros from Sánchez, 50,000 from Bolaños, 40,000 from Montero, 30,000 from the PSOE, 30,000 from Antolín, 20,000 from Rodríguez, 15,000 from Más Madrid, 15,000 from Maestre, 15,000 from Morant and 10,000 to Zaragoza. Added to the 20,000 requested from Bergerot, they make a total of 345,000 euros, which is an amount close to the 350,951 euros defrauded, according to the Treasury.
The claim against Bergerot, to which EL PAÍS has had access, is based on her interview this Wednesday on Telemadrid, where she said: “What seems shameful to me is that a president in the Community of Madrid is benefiting from the tax crimes of her boyfriend, Mr. Alberto González Amador. This is not the case of Alberto González Amador. This is the Ayuso case from the moment the president benefits from these tax crimes, living in a penthouse bought with those tax crimes, and above all with a house upstairs paid for by a businessman, which draws my attention a lot that still We don’t know and he didn’t want to respond, so that no one wonders who pays for that other house and in exchange for what. It is Mrs. Ayuso who is going on vacation in the summer of ’21, I think, and thanks to all the money from Alberto González Amador, we have seen how he defrauds the Treasury of 250,000 euros for a commission of two million euros. Some commissions thanks to their best client, which is the Quirón Group, which puts them in contact with the Community of Madrid.”
Then Bergerot posted a tweet in which he includes the video with that statement and the text: “The president’s boyfriend is a criminal, he himself has confessed it, and today I have made it clear to this talk show host on Telemadrid. Pocketing two million euros, defrauding the Treasury of 350,000 euros, deducting Rolex and trips with Ayuso is not about being an exemplary citizen.”
The president’s boyfriend is a criminal, he himself has confessed it, and today I made it clear to this talk show host on Telemadrid.
Pocketing 2 million euros, defrauding the Treasury of €350,000, deducting Rolex taxes and trips with Ayuso is not about being an exemplary citizen. pic.twitter.com/zwUoJHS00Y
— Manuela Bergerot (@manuelabergerot) October 23, 2024
This new judicial action by Amador is similar to the one that was announced on Monday against President Sánchez and Minister Bolañosagainst whom he claims 100,000 and 50,000 euros respectively. Both had called the businessman a “confessed criminal.” The two were based on facts widely reported by the media: the email of February 2, in which Amador’s lawyer says: “two crimes of tax fraud have certainly been committed” and the negotiations of the investigated person with the Prosecutor’s Office for which He admits his guilt in exchange for a reduction in sentence that allows him to avoid prison. Amador has been under investigation since March by the head of the 19th investigative court of Madrid, Inmaculada Iglesias, for the commission of two crimes of tax fraud in competition with one of fraud in a commercial document (referring to the false invoices that he used to deduct expenses ). In addition, this Wednesday the judge opened a separate case for the possible commission of two other crimes: corruption in business and unfair administration of a commercial company.
Bergerot received the conciliation demand this morning in the Assembly, before the weekly plenary session. In a statement to EL PAÍS, he said that this “is not going to silence us,” and added that he is going to say “everything that is necessary until Isabel Díaz Ayuso answers us who pays for the penthouse in which she lives.” The spokesperson for this left-wing party considers that these complaints are “a strategy to victimize a criminal so that Alberto González Amador can make money and be able to pay the fine.”
Amador’s complaints raise an issue about politicians’ freedom of expression. This week several jurists have spoken out in favor of the businessman’s claims, arguing that he cannot be considered a “confessed criminal” because his presumption of innocence must prevail.
Other jurists defend that the freedom of expression of politicians enjoys a reinforced freedom of expression. Javier Pérez Royo, emeritus professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Seville, believes that parliamentary inviolability should protect this type of demonstration. However, he adds that constitutional jurisprudence has limited this inviolability to declarations made in parliament. This has generated a debate about whether statements in the media, social networks or press conferences are covered. “In my opinion this protection should be expanded because modern politics is also done outside of parliament and the political debate would be broken if we could not protect these other areas.”
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