Testimony at the Audiencia Nacional

Esperanza Aguirre, former president of the Community of Madrid, appeared on Thursday, 22 October, as a witness in the Audiencia Nacional trial of the Lezo case. Speaking to reporters on arrival, she said she would tell the whole truth and distanced herself from the actions of Ignacio González, her former number two and successor in office. Inside the court she acknowledged that the idea of building a golf practice ground on the third reservoir of Canal de Isabel II was hers, but said she had no part in awarding the works.

The trial concerns alleged irregularities in two public contracts awarded by Canal de Isabel II for the golf practice ground, which prosecutors say benefited a brother and a brother-in-law of González. Besides González, the defendants include Ildefonso de Miguel, the Canal's managing director between 2003 and 2009, and three partners of the firm TCT: José Antonio Clemente, Pablo Manuel González and Juan José Caballero. The last two are the brother and brother-in-law of González. According to the prosecution's provisional conclusions, in June 2004 the Canal's management, led by De Miguel and González, pushed and facilitated the processing of a modification intended to benefit relatives of González.

The golf practice ground

Aguirre said the idea was entirely hers and traced it to a trip to Tokyo in 1978, when she was a civil servant at the Ministry of Tourism and saw many practice grounds inside the city. She argued that Chamberí, a district with few parks or sports areas, was a better use of the site than a heliport. Defending the project before the court, she said:

“Better that than a heliport for Bono and King Juan Carlos.”

Aguirre said José Bono used the heliport to fly home and that King Juan Carlos also used it. Witnesses in earlier sessions, including a former engineering director of Canal de Isabel II, said it mainly served nearby hospitals for transplants. Aguirre also said the city council did not treat the project as being of general interest and denied the licence, and that she then agreed it should be declared so. LaSexta reported that she said she could not recall details of the management of the works or of the awards.

Denial of involvement

Aguirre said the Canal was owned by the regional government but run by its board, so she had no role in the awards. She said González and De Miguel never told her the details of the works, and described a long working relationship with González that ran through the Madrid city council and then the Ministry of Education. Asked whether she knew what González was doing, she replied:

“How was I supposed to know that?”

She told reporters that she only learned of González's family links to the contracts from the press, some 20 years later. Prosecutors seek six years in prison for González on an alleged bribery charge (cohecho), over events dating to 2004 and 2006, when he was vice president of the regional government and headed Canal de Isabel II.

Her resignation in 2017

When González entered prison in 2017, Aguirre resigned as spokesperson and councillor at Madrid city council. González had been held for six months after his arrest that year. Before the court she said she had accepted political responsibility and no more:

“I already resigned to take on political responsibility, never legal or criminal.”

The prosecution's request for six years in prison is the sentence sought against González at this stage of the trial.