Former Vice-President and former Equality Minister Mónica Oltra responded for seven hours last Monday to 209 questions put to her by the magistrate and the Prosecution Court prosecutor, 15 and seven attorneys for the fourteen defenses. Oltra, the former minister’s ex-husband, emerged under investigation in the case where the Ministry of Equality investigated her treatment of her minor in care, which exposed the abuses of an observer convicted from the court’s second chamber and pending appeal. before the Supreme.
A thorough and rigorous interrogation focused on finding out what the head of minors in the custody of the Generalitat did in response to a complaint affecting her ex-husband.
Oltra told the judge and prosecutor that she did nothing in the first four months after the minor reported the abuse. [que no se notificaron a la Fiscalía aunque la menor tampoco quiso denunciar los hechos al Grupo de Menores (Grume) de la Policía] because he didn’t know the truth. Nobody warned him. When he learned from Luis Ramírez Icardi, who shared the same house in the summer of 2016, “as Mónica Oltra, not as Minister of Equality,” he reported the facts to the prosecutor’s office. The ministry will find out what happened.
And she assures that she didn’t want to know anything about it until two years later, when her ex-husband was convicted in December 2019 and had to make statements on Corts in 2020. “I wanted to say something about this. the opposition had the right to control the government,” he assured the judge.
The judge’s extensive 136-question questioning left several loose conclusions in the two “stages” of this investigation: before and after August 4, 2017, when Oltra claimed she learned of the harassment complaint against her ex-husband.
A couple’s relationship that began “on September 29, 2001” and “ended in the summer of 2016”, even though they continued to “share property until late August or early September 2017”. Monitor Luis Ramírez Icardi has worked at the Niño Jesús València minors’ shelter (CAM) since January 1, 2010.
Ensures that, following his appointment as Generalitat Vice-President and Minister of Equality on 29 June 2015, it was communicated orally to the Undersecretary “for reasons of political responsibility and ethical demands”. [de la Conselleria de Igualdad, entonces Francesc Gamero] and a few months later [ya en 2016] A report was taken that her husband was working in the children’s center.
Because Oltra, accepting the judge’s questions, said, “I was obliged to abstain in the decisions concerning the center in question and not to intervene in any issue that is directly related to the center.”
a phone call
Therefore, she affirmed before the magistrate that she “did not know until 4 August 2017 of the facts attributed to her husband, Mr. “I got a call from my ex, Oltra explained, because I was on vacation with my mother in Alcossebre. I asked him to read the first page because there was difficulty in communicating on the phone. And I noticed that there are some previews there. I obviously knew nothing of DIP (criminal investigative proceedings) and I show him what it means ».
That same day, “right after”, Mónica Oltra stated that she had contacted Miquel Real, chief of staff at the Ministry of Equality, and stated that “the first thing I told her was to gather information and gather information about whether this was at the consulate. but as Monica Oltra».
Although, given this response, the magistrate was interested to know “why you instructed your chief of staff if you understood that it was an ethical requirement and a political responsibility on your part to avoid anything related to CAM Niño Jesús.” It’s about your kinship with Mr. Ramírez.
“I could not pass on this subject – replied Oltra – without informing the ministry, because in any case the duty of abstention implied not to make a decision on the matter, but to conceal it, not openly in the face of such important information.”
According to his statement, it was the first and only decision he took in this regard. Because on the same night, as Oltra first explained, a medical problem in one of her children was decided on the administrative file filed for the abuses of mother Oltra against the inspector and ex-wife’s juvenile under guardianship. “My concerns in those days were that my son would not die. And therefore, I have had no intervention or decision in this matter,” Oltra replied to the magistrate of Order 15.
To the prosecutor’s questions, Mónica Oltra also admitted that, since she had this conversation with the Chief of Staff, “I no longer have any knowledge of the facts” until 2020, when she had to prepare a statement in Court. The prosecutor asked, “Was he unaware of the facts?” she asked. “If ignoring is ignoring the steps taken by the technicians, yes.” And he added: “I did not intervene in this matter in any way, more precisely because it affected the father of my children, and therefore it was my duty to refrain, my will not to interfere with any action, in relation to the actions of the technicians.”
The prosecutor didn’t seem to believe in Oltra’s determination to avoid getting information from Oltra. “Were you quick with all the information until the first sentence of the County Court? [de diciembre de 2019] Didn’t you use unofficial channels to find out what’s going on? To which Oltra categorically responds: “Neither formal nor informal.”
Therefore, if Oltra abstained throughout the process, the compelling question of the magistrate and prosecutor was when he explained to the media on February 7 why he had ordered the opening of the case on the minor’s abuse, “out of court” according to the Court. “It was an emotional outburst. They charged five people the day before and my son He asked me if these people were my colleagues, they had families and they were suffering. This question from my son revealed a moment of high emotional tension after an informative breakfast with the media, where questions focused on accusations. Behind the journalists, an official was crying. Not being prosecuted for preying on the far right It just seemed so unfair to me that people and their families suffer because I was the target of persecution. And that was my way of letting off steam.”