The State Attorney General, Dolores Delgado, brought to the meeting of the Fiscal Council this Thursday the criticisms raised in recent weeks about her decision, adopted a year ago, to leave Ignacio Stampa out of Anti-Corruption, one of the two prosecutors who opened the investigation of Villarejo case. Delgado’s intention was to close the matter, but the meeting has ended up opening a gap between the conservative sector of the race, represented by the Association of Prosecutors (to which Stampa belonged until a few months ago) and the progressive, represented by the Progressive Union of Prosecutors (of which Delgado was a member while he was an active prosecutor).

The attorney general summoned the Anticorruption chief, Alejandro Luzón, and the head of the Technical Secretariat, Álvaro García, to the meeting. The first, according to the sources consulted, defended that the places that were assigned required a profile of “prudence and discretion” in which, as suggested, Stampa did not fit. Luzón, according to these sources, was critical of the attitude of the discharged Anti-Corruption prosecutor, whom he reproached for a certain desire for media prominence. A note released this Thursday by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that this preference for prosecutors “serious, discreet, rigorous and far from controversy” was also expressed by several counselors, including some from the Association of Prosecutors, in the session of the Fiscal Council in the one that voted the appointments for the eight places to which Stampa aspired. The then researcher of the Villarejo case he did not receive any of the 80 votes that were cast (10 per seat). None of the four members of UPF voted for him, but neither did any of the five members of the Association of Prosecutors, to which he belonged at the time.

Faced with criticism from a sector of the career that Delgado appealed to Stampa de Anticorrupción to undermine the investigation against Villarejo, the Anticorruption chief argued before the Fiscal Council that the processing of the Tandem case has continued in an “effective” manner after the departure of the first fiscal. Currently, Luzón recalled, three separate pieces of this procedure (Iron, Land and Painter pieces) are being judged in the National Court and in them the Prosecutor’s Office requests more than 100 years in prison against the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo Pérez.

In the criticisms made in recent months by Stampa against the Attorney General’s Office for leaving him out of the case, the prosecutor accuses Álvaro García, number two of Delgado in the Prosecutor’s Office, to delay the closure of an open investigation against him for allegedly leaking information to Podemos about the Din casea, in which the theft of a mobile phone from a former assistant of Pablo Iglesias is investigated. The head of the Technical Secretariat explained to the Council on Thursday that he “suggested” to the Madrid chief prosecutor that the investigation should not be shelved until evidence that was considered “essential” and that had been requested by the investigating judge was carried out, but he rejected having maneuvered to undermine Stampa’s options to get a place in Anti-Corruption.

These explanations did not convince the members of the Association of Prosecutors (AF), who claimed to have access to all the information on the case. Among other things, clarify whether the law firm of former judge Baltasar Garzón, Delgado’s partner, defends any of those investigated in the Villarejo case. The attorney general refused to provide this information as “reserved matter”, a decision criticized by the conservative association in a statement released in the afternoon. “We understand that the consideration as reserved and the refusal to communicate this documentation to the Fiscal Council, does not help to clear up the doubts created and affects article 23.2 of the Spanish Constitution that establishes the right to exercise public office without illegitimate disturbances, therefore We demand an express, reasoned and non-restrictive response, as this is an essential request for the exercise of our functions, ”the text states.

This association also considers that Delgado cannot make that decision or any other related to the Stampa issue, since they consider that his relationship with Garzón and the fact that an encounter between the two and Villarejo had been disclosed before the investigation was opened compel the attorney general to abstain in this matter. For this reason, it should also have abstained, according to the AF, in the appointment of positions in Anti-corruption. As stated by the Prosecutor’s Office before the Fiscal Council on Wednesday, the chief prosecutor of Inspection rejected this possibility, understanding that there is no legal coverage for a general attorney to refrain from making proposals for discretionary appointments, whose designation corresponds, ultimately, to the Minister council.