Thursday, March 28

Carromer’s time


It was the only resignation in the Madrid City Council when the president of the Community accused the leadership of the PP of having organized espionage against her from there. Her departure was never explained and now all eyes are on him. But the former general coordinator of the Madrid Mayor’s Office, Ángel Carromero, has not yet notified the presidency of the investigation commission on the alleged espionage if he is going to appear to testify next Monday, May 9, in which – except for surprises – it will be the last session held by this body. Carromero maintains the suspense and his silence is causing a lot of nervousness in the surroundings of the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and in the councilor himself, who wants to guarantee that he will put the finishing touch to the investigation commission with his version of the events. Nobody expects him to contribute anything new, but it is a way of ensuring that everything is under control now that, with Pablo Casado dead politically, Ayuso has lost any interest in events that he considered very serious and that marked the beginning of the biggest internal crisis in the Popular Party .

Villacís rules out that Ayuso was spied on with funds from the City Council but does not know if it was done by other means

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Almeida has not even specified the time of his appearance, waiting for Carromero to confirm whether he will attend or not. The PP is going to support the fact that the mayor is the last to testify in the afternoon session. Meanwhile, the opposition groups prepare their questionnaires to both to try to determine the political responsibilities that may exist in this matter. Because, although the espionage did not materialize, given the internal controls that exist to contract for these purposes from the EMVS and the EMT, the suspicions that there were steps to try to access banking or fiscal documents of the brother of Isabel Díaz Ayuso to prove that they received a commission for a contract awarded by the Community continue.

Ayuso from the first second spoke directly of espionage that many weeks later no one has been able to prove. The unknown that remains is who ordered the tracking of secret documents that shed light on Tomás Díaz Ayuso’s charges: more than 300,000 euros through the company of a friend who sold 1.5 million euros in masks to the Madrid government.

And on top of that beats another question: why did Carromero resign if, as the mayor said, “he had nothing to do with the case? Those are the two big issues that remain unanswered. And it is what the municipal spokesmen want the former general coordinator of the Mayor’s Office to clarify, who, along with Almeida, is the person who best knows all the ins and outs of this case.

There is information published by the newspaper ABC in which it is reported that a person was presumably sent by Carromero – a “tall and dark young man of about 30 years, who identified himself as Javier Muñoz” – to meet at the end of March at the Wellington Hotel in Madrid with the owner of the Mira detective agency, Julio Gutiez, to probe him about obtaining those bank and tax documents, which are confidential.

The name coincides with that of an adviser in Usera to councilor Loreto Sordo, who appeared last week in the commission and denied having anything to do with the issue. From More Madrid they suspect that there could have been an “impersonation” and point out that the person who could really try to hire the detective was José Cruz Mata, a close friend of Carromero and also an advisor to Loreto Sordo but in the Moncloa-Aravaca district. However, this Friday, during his statement at the investigation commission, Cruz Mata said that he and he did not know Julio Gutiez, nor has he ever tried to hire any detective. This is one of the episodes that the groups want to try to get Carromero to clarify.

A resignation in ‘deferred’

Carromero, with the position of general director at the Madrid City Council, one of the positions closest to the mayor, announced his “imminent” resignation on February 17, just the same day that various reports pointed to him as one of the the main pieces in the supposed espionage to the president of the Community of Madrid from the Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS).

His step back, which was sold as a voluntary resignation to “be able to defend himself” and “not damage the image of the City Council”, caused some surprise given that the mayor had appeared early the previous day and stated that he had spoken with his adviser ” throughout the afternoon” of the day before “on various occasions”, after breaking the first news, and Carromero had denied the facts. “He has absolutely denied me that he has carried out any type of procedure aimed at obtaining information about Ayuso or his relatives,” said Almeida, who sentenced: “Once the inquiries were made, we concluded that the detective denies the meeting, that the worker denies the meeting, that there is no contract and it has not been possible to produce any order or any payment with public money from the City Council to obtain information of that nature.

However, in the next line it warned that “there is no room for any irregular behavior or that is not exemplary in any position of the Madrid City Council” and that “in the event that an indication appears that there is a person with a position in Cibeles who has carried out management to obtain that information, it will be terminated immediately ”, be it Carromero or any other person.

Carromero fell after a meeting between Almeida and the director of a media outlet who warned the mayor that he had compromising material. Later it was discovered that the person who actually wrote his resignation letter and scanned his signature was Vicente Javier Segura Fayos, a member of the Mayor’s Office. For the document to be official, this advisor took a document from Carromero’s office signed by him and scanned the signature. The maneuver was made to prevent him from having to appear at the extraordinary meeting of the Security and Emergencies Commission that the opposition had demanded to convene. The PP then alleged that it had not been summoned in a timely manner and, in addition, Carromero was no longer in charge of the city council. So Almeida’s adviser left without giving the slightest explanation.

Days later, Carromero also left his positions in the PP in Madrid, where he was president of the Electoral Committee and of the Chamartín district, and resigned as a party member. Carromero was summoned to testify at the first session of the investigation commission but argued that he could not attend and asked to change the date. Since then no more has been heard of him until last week he asked to find a place for him on May 9. It is the last day of the commission and the same one in which Almeida will speak. Why hasn’t he shown signs of life until now? Few know it, because Carromero, since he left the town hall, hardly speaks with his former colleagues. With the mayor the relationship is in tatters.

Other controversies

Last April, the newspaper ABC published that he had joined the Marqués de Oliva Foundation, chaired by Alejandro Suárez Sánchez-Ocaña, whose purpose is “to promote and encourage the figure of the private investor, also known as ‘business angel’, and of that species in danger of extinction, the entrepreneur in Spain”, as indicated on the website of this institution.

The figure of Carromero has been involved in more than one controversy. In 2012, the former president of New Generations of the PP was convicted and imprisoned for the reckless murder of Cuban opponents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in a car accident in Cuba. The former president of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, arranged for his extradition to Spain, where he continued to serve his sentence until 2013.

Some time later, his closeness to Pablo Casado helped him climb positions in the PP. In 2019, just a month before the general elections, the party rehabilitated him and appointed him deputy electoral secretary in Madrid. In addition, Almeida signed him to help him manage him at the head of the consistory. Barely three years later, his figure has faded again. Next Monday it will be known what role the Madrid mayor’s plumber played in the case of the alleged espionage on the regional president. The bets are crossed on whether he will go or not.



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