Alex Trelinski
BEGOÑA Gomez, the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has denied allegations of corruption and influence-peddling linked to her teaching business during her first testimony in court on Wednesday since an investigation began in April.
The proceedings are part of an investigation into whether Gomez used her position as the PM’s wife to illegally get software financed by private companies and initially intended for Madrid’s Complutense University while she worked there- bypassing a public bidding process.
She has not been charged with any crimes and entered and left the Madrid court by car through an underground garage to avoid the press that was waiting for her.
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She previously invoked her right to silence in July in connection with the case.
In the closed-door hearing, Gomez only answered questions put by her lawyer Antonio Camacho, a former interior minister.
“My client has testified, as she’s wanted to since the very beginning, because she has nothing to hide. If she did not testify before it is because there was a lack of definition about what was being investigated,” Camacho told reporters after the hearing.
He said Gomez had ‘explained that she never knew about the existence of these public bidding processes’ and that she ‘never intervened at all’ nor was aware when those were awarded.
She also said that any meetings she may have held to discuss the university course in the official prime minister’s residence were due to mobility restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, so she had to meet people at her home.
The case was brought in a private complaint by Manos Limpias, an anti-corruption activist group led by Miguel Bernad, a lawyer and politician who has stood as a candidate for a far-right party in European elections.
Gomez’s appearance is the high point of a week of court hearings connected with Sanchez and his government, the other centred on the allegedly fraudulent procurement of masks during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The businessman suspected of being at the heart of the case on Monday accused Jose Luis Abalos, Sanchez’s former transport minister and close ally, of accepting lucrative kickbacks in exchange for the contracts.
Abalos’s former adviser, another key suspect, appeared in court on Tuesday, while a member of staff at government headquarters accused of actually working for Gomez is due to testify on Friday.
