The previous president of Spain’s Valencia area, Carlos Mazón, has come below renewed scrutiny over a interval of a number of hours he spent with a journalist when flash floods struck his area with tragic penalties a 12 months in the past.
It was already recognized they spent a number of hours at lunch. Newest allegations recommend their encounter could have lasted longer.
A complete of 229 individuals had been killed by the floods within the jap province of Valencia on 29 October 2024. One other eight individuals misplaced their lives in neighbouring areas.
Mazón, of the conservative Individuals’s Occasion, has already stated this month he’s stepping down as regional chief resulting from a notion that he and his administration mishandled the disaster.
A lot of the anger was as a result of his authorities waited till after 20:00 on the day that the floods struck to difficulty an emergency textual content alert to the telephones of individuals in Valencia, warning them to remain at house.
By that point, it’s believed that a lot of the victims had already died.
Mazón didn’t supervise emergency conferences for a lot of the day as a result of he was having a prolonged lunch with an area journalist, Maribel Vilaplana, it has emerged.
The meal, in response to proof given to native decide Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, who’s investigating doable negligence by the authorities, lasted almost 4 hours.
New experiences contradict their accounts of what occurred subsequent.
Ms Vilaplana testified earlier than the decide on 3 November that she and the politician left the restaurant at round 18:45 and walked the quick distance to the automotive park the place she had left her automotive, earlier than separating.
Mazón has given an identical model of occasions. She stated she spent a while in her automotive answering messages on her cellphone and taking notes on her laptop.
Ms Vilaplana’s financial institution card particulars reviewed by the Justice of the Peace have since proven she drove out of the underground automotive park at 19:47.
Nevertheless, native information outlet Levante, citing PP sources, has reported that the journalist drove Mazón to the regional authorities headquarters, the place she left him at round 20:00.
In response to this unconfirmed model of occasions, they had been collectively from the beginning of the meal till then.
Till now, the timeline of Mazón’s actions had not accounted for 37 minutes main as much as Ms Vilaplana’s departure from the automotive park, when his cellphone data present that he didn’t reply a number of calls.
The automotive park particulars didn’t make clear the place he was between leaving the restaurant and his arrival on the headquarters of the native emergency company, at 20:28 in response to safety digital camera footage.
Some media experiences have cited police sources accustomed to his safety element saying that after leaving the restaurant he went to his house close by, had a bathe and probably a nap earlier than going to the federal government headquarters after which the emergency company.
Responding to newest experiences, Mazón insisted that he didn’t cease off anyplace on the best way to the federal government constructing and he denied that Ms Vilaplana had pushed him there, insisting that he walked.
“Data retains popping out that has nothing to with the dealing with of the emergency, or the taking of selections, of operational selections, or the administration of [the floods], it has nothing to do with that,” he advised reporters.
Mazón has repeatedly blamed the central authorities and state companies for not offering him sufficient details about the floods.
Throughout questioning by the decide on Wednesday, Mazón’s chief of workers, José Manuel Cuenca, stated that he was conscious of “the seriousness of the state of affairs” in some areas by 15:00, when the politician was beginning his lunch.
The previous head of the inside division in Mazón’s authorities, Salomé Pradas, has been named as a doable suspect within the investigation. She denies any wrongdoing and says that she did all she may with the knowledge she had on the time.
Mazón can’t be charged as a result of he has parliamentary immunity.
José Muñoz, of the Socialist Occasion in Valencia, referred to as on the conservatives to strip Mazón of his regional parliamentary seat, alleging he’s trapped in a “labyrinth of lies”.
