The Court Confirms Pradas' Indictment: "She Could Have Accessed Information on Water Levels and Their Consequences"

The Valencia Court continues to uphold the judge's investigation into the storm case. The Chamber has confirmed the indictment of Councillor Salomé Pradas for failing to implement preventive measures to mitigate the effects of extraordinary rainfall. The judge attributes the highest responsibility to her for the Generalitat's inaction, which resulted in a delayed Es Alert message and an error in its content.

Similarly, the second section of the court rejects the possibility of indicting the Government Delegate, Pilar Bernabé, and the CHJ President, Miguel Polo, for potential responsibility in managing the tragedy. This is not the first time the Court has ruled in this manner. In a previous decision, it explained that the official did not hold a guarantor position in the operation. This view is shared by the Public Prosecutor's Office, which noted her role as mere coordination in the operation.

The novelty of the day lies in the resolution affecting the former councillor. Pradas proposed dismissal. The Court has rejected it. All the magistrates of the Second Section, as they have done in previous rulings due to the importance of the case, agree on "identifying the normative source of the duty to act" that the investigated had, that is, her competence and the guarantor position she would hold in relation to the population potentially affected by the disaster.

The magistrates maintain that the judge has presented a "hypothesis of improper non-compliance with these duties, with data extracted from the proceedings that support the claim that Pradas had or could have had access to existing information on the water levels accumulating as a result of the torrential rains and the consequences they were causing and could cause along the way."

The order repeatedly highlights the precision of this moment in the investigation, that is, when the former councillor was indicted, a condition that at that time was "procedurally inevitable." However, some statements made during the investigation—after Pradas' appeal was filed—have partially confirmed the lack of information available at Cecopi about the Poyo ravine, the nerve centre of the tragedy.

The Court considers that Pradas' defence does not challenge the factual basis of the resolution. Her strategy, it seems, is to dilute personal responsibilities in a supposed "normative tangle" and a multiplicity of concurrent factors. But the judge has constructed a "factual hypothesis consistent with the information gathered on the investigated facts and with what the applicable regulations foresee."

Aside from the actions of the CHJ President—who did not inform Cecopi of the increase in water levels—the Chamber supports the judge's thesis that "there were various sources of information, including the SAIH—Automatic Hydrological Information System—which would provide sufficient data to have adequate knowledge of the impending danger and which required the adoption of protective measures for the population."

The Court does not address at any point the preventive measures that the former councillor should have adopted and omitted. There is no reference to the famous Es Alert message, which the investigating judge considers erroneous and delayed and which has been one of the pillars of Pradas' indictment.

The tribunal remains cautious, as is logical, in this still early stage of the case. In fact, the order emphasises that the information provided by the ongoing proceedings "could consolidate the initial hypothesis about Salomé Pradas' responsibility, or it could allow for alternative authorships or explanations in relation to all or part of the facts."

This was not the only resolution on a particularly intense Thursday in the court where the storm case is being investigated, with the testimony of a new witness. In the second of the orders, the magistrates dismiss the appeal filed by the association Hazte Oír against the inadmissibility of its complaint against the President of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) and four officials of that body: the Secretary-General, the Water Commissioner, the Technical Director, and the Head of the Hydrological Planning Office.

"The appellant organisation's claim to open a criminal proceeding without indicating or attributing facts with criminal significance to any person cannot be sustained, as admitting the complaint as it is against an administrative body would lead to a prospective investigation prohibited in our legal system," the Chamber states.

Finally, the Court has also rejected the appeal filed by the popular accusation exercised by the association Liberum, to which Vox adhered, against the refusal of the Investigating Judge to take a statement as an investigated person from the Government Delegate in the Valencian Community.

In this case, the magistrates reiterate the arguments they already expressed in a previous appeal order regarding the fact that the delegate did not request the declaration of a national emergency, as well as the legal attribution of the single command of the emergency to the regional administration in the storm case.