All the important cards are already on the table. The judgment of master’s case It held its fourth and penultimate session this Friday, which served for the five pending witnesses as well as the police experts to testify. In the absence of the final reports phase, scheduled for next Friday, the parties play their last trick, the court has already heard the testimonies of those involved in the plot that puts Cristina Cifuentes, former president of the Community, on the bench of Madrid, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for three years and three months in prison for inducing the falsification of the certificate of his final master’s thesis (TFM). The assessment of his words, as well as the evidence provided, will be key to answering the main questions that will mark the future of the former leader of the PP.
Did Cifuentes do the master’s degree? Cifuentes is not judged for not having completed the master’s degree in Autonomous Law taught by the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC), but this question is key to understanding the context in which the record was falsified. During her statement, the former president assured the court that she met the requirements set by Professor Enrique Álvarez Conde, the head of the title, who died in 2019 and allegedly “brain” of a plot that gave diplomas to students “with a position relevant in the political, institutional sphere or who maintained close ties of friendship or professional nature ”with him, according to the investigating judge.
PHOTO GALLERY | The characters of the ‘master case’
The former head of the regional government admitted, however, that she passed the course without having a relationship with any teacher and without going to class. He explained that he only did one job per subject, of which no trace remains. But he never gave them to the teachers of the subjects, but to Álvarez Conde himself, the only one with whom he communicated. And always by phone because, he added, the professor did not like e-mail. An extreme that several witnesses deny. This same Friday, Esther González, professor of the master’s degree, explained that she was related to Álvarez Conde for e-mail: “I have sent him jobs [por esta vía]”.
Did you defend the TFM? This question reveals the main contradiction of Cifuentes. When the scandal broke out and he avoided resignation, he appeared in public and said: “I defended the corresponding work in person on the university campus.” Those words took a 180 degree turn two years later; in the trial he has assured the opposite: “I really did not defend the work. I handed it in and explained the general lines […] To the people I gave it to … I don’t know if it was the court either. ” A version that clashes with other testimonies and circumstances. No one at the university has proof that he turned in the final master’s thesis. In addition, those responsible for the URJC explained that he could not take the TFM evaluation without first passing all the subjects, as stated in the internal system. The three teachers – Cecilia Rosado, Clara Souto and Alicia López de los Mozos – who appear in the labor defense act, also affirmed that they never formed the court. And José Antonio Lobato, in charge of the department that keeps all the minutes, said that they looked for Cifuentes’ everywhere and that it was not found.
Who ordered to falsify the minutes? It is the most important question and the one that will decide the future of Cifuentes. There is little doubt that the TFM record was fabricated: the author of the forgery (Cecilia Rosado) confessed it in court. But the question is to know if there are enough indications that point to the former president as an inducer. During the trial, no one has pointed out her directly, but the Prosecutor’s Office and the URJC maintain that she was behind. In that sense, Rosado explained that a Community advisor who had traveled to the university that day, María Teresa Feito, pressured her and expressly asked to create the document that Cifuentes exhibited that same night to avoid the controversy. The rector, Javier Ramos, and other witnesses also highlighted the active role that Feito played in solving the crisis. They took it for granted that he was speaking on behalf of the Government of Madrid.
In turn, police experts confirmed this Friday that a university official – Amalia Calonge, a co-worker of Cifuentes’ sister and who previously knew the former president – entered the computer system without permission and modified two notes from the leader of the PP (one of them, that of the TFM).
Did Cifuentes show the record knowing that it was false? Once it has been decided whether Cifuentes defended the TFM or not, this other question arises that has already emerged in the instruction. When the prosecution of the accused was confirmed, the Provincial Court presented as an argument that there were indications that the former president had “publicly exhibited the false document that she had induced to draw up, being fully aware of its falsity, since she was aware, like no one else, that he had not carried out the master’s thesis, nor had he defended it himself before a university court ”.
Are there more false documents? The trial has put a trump card on the table for Cifuentes, who already held the URJC responsible for the events in his statement. More documents with false signatures have been detected – the police experts spoke this Friday of a half dozen, in addition to students who do not recognize theirs. This opens the door for the defenses to claim that this was a common practice in the master’s degree directed by Álvarez Conde and that other people may be behind it, since it was done in cases where Cifuentes had no interest.
source https://pledgetimes.com/the-key-evidence-for-the-future-cifuentes-prison/
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