Salome Pradas, the former counselor marked by the Dana who threatens to count « the whole truth » | News from the Valencian Community

When he left on Valencian television on November 7, he was unaware of the existence of the message to alert To the citizenship of the Dana Until shortly before sending it, Salome Pradas It was sentenced. In addition to his very questioned management, which would cost him to be charged four months later By the instructor judge of Catarroja, the Minister of Justice and Interior, responsible for emergencies of the Generalitat on October 29, when the floods charged the lives of 228 people, transmitted an unsustainable image, of frivolity, ignorance or withdrawal, in the middle of the largest natural catastrophe that is remembered in the Valencian Community.

However, this 46-year-old lawyer, married to a respected officer of the Local Police of Castellón, has a more polyhedral image in his city, where she was councilor of the City Council (2015-2019), or in the Senate (2015-2023), in which he consolidated discreetly in his second legislature with several positions sponsored for his fidelity to the dome of the PP of the PP of then, formed by Pablo. Teodoro García, president and general secretary, respectively.

The majority of half a dozen testimonies of people who have treated it and lent themselves to speak under anonymity highlight the work capacity of the person most indicated in the Dana. Carlos Mazón, president of the Generalitat, dismissed her four weeks after the floods and has discharged on her the responsibility of the day of cars when she washed her hands and affirm that she was not present in the decision making. Pradas recips all the attention and even more when he announced that he will tell the magistrate « the whole truth. »

“He will have been wrong and will have to pay for it, but everything surprises me a little, because he is a very hardworking, serious and rigorous person, with whom he could dialogue and reach agreements. She is very fucking, just like her husband, ”says a former political rival of his city. « It is very curricious, that is true, but it is also very little consistent and a very stretched person, » says another leftist testimony. « Worker, yes, also to make his way to herself in politics, » says a source of his party.

When the victims are asked about tragedy's management, there is a consensus to describe the role played by the former counselor: « disastrous. » “The catastrophe came great. He behaved as an incompetent, ”says Christian Lesaec, president of the Association of Damnified Horta Sud Valencia (300 members), which has presented the complaint that he forged this week in the imputation of Pradas and of what was his second in emergencies, Emilio Argüeso. « I had information about what was happening and did nothing, » adds Manuel Mata, former socialist director and lawyer of the popular accusation of cultural action. « His performance was negligent and criminal, » says María Teresa Pérez, Valencian coordinator of Podemos, who also exercises the popular accusation. The former counselor has declined to attend to El País.

Pradas has displayed in interviews with his work experience in his little firm specialized in Mercantil del Villareal, where she worked more than a decade (she was also an associated professor at the University Jaume I of Castelló, where she studied), before entering politics, unlike many other leaders. “It's very dear. It has a very good ethical standard, ”defends the dean of the Castellón Bar Association, Manuel Mata, who acknowledges to maintain a good personal relationship with the former counselor, who intends to return to his profession. And, in that climate of trust, Pradas has confessed that on October 29 « he did what he had to do, » as he has also said publicly. In private, the former emergency does not charge the inks against the president of the Generalitat, says her friend.

The content of the five calls that the former counselor maintained with Mazón, as the Consell's own head has revealed, between 17.37 and 20.00 on the day of the storm, is another of the great unknowns that the tragedy leaves. The first of these communications between the two was at 5:37 p.m., when the province of Valencia was flooded and, supposedly, the President He had completed his food with a journalist at a central restaurant in Valencia.

Along with the alert delay, Pradas must clarify to the judge how it is possible that the Generalitat, who knew firsthand victims since the morning of October 29 through 112- the emergency telephone service- not before the population of the magnitude of the largest catastrophe that Valencia has devastated.

Several sources consulted agree that the lawyer is a party woman, who will hardly pull the blanket to incriminate, for example, Mazón. At the moment, Pradas has stated that she acted following the criteria of the technicians, which can mark their line of defense, together with the alleged lack of temporary information and floods by state agencies. This week, the former director sent a statement with her last words before declaring in court, she announced: “I will always be able to help you know the whole truth about the circumstances surrounding the management of the emergence of the natural catastrophe, the truth of a few hours and a few days in which I kept me from the first minute to the last applicable ”.

“She is a party woman, but we'll see if everything is complicated. In Valencia we have examples, ”says a source close to the PP. Joaquín Barceló, friend of the childhood of Eduardo Zaplana and one of his testaferros, and Juan Francisco García, who was his trusted man in the presidency of the Generalitat, confessed in exchange for a reduction of his sorrows. Zaplana has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for various crimes of corruption.

Zaplana was the one that opened the door of politics to Mazón by appointing him in 1999 director of the Valencian Institute of Youth with 25 years. Pradas entered much later, at a time when the Valencian PP had to get away from the long stain of corruption. In Castellón, it acquired the name of the former Almighty Carlos Fabra, former president of the Diputación. Pradas, a young liberal professional, without children, with good image, quota of Castellón, climbed on the side of another Fabra, Alberto, who assumed the presidency of the Generalitat after the processing of Francisco Camps in the case of the costumes, from which he left exculpated. She was appointed General Director of Natural Environment in the Ministry of Infrastructure, led by Isabel Bonig, which in 2015 would become the leader of the PP of the Valencian Community.

When the time has come, however, Pradas opted for Mazón, the candy chosen by Casado to be the miscarriage of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who would end up later in front of the game. Mazón appointed her first of the Environment and after interior, once Vox left the regional governments and left the emergency department. The political assumption of this last competition has now led him to be judicially investigated.

Pradas has signed for its defense in the cause of the Dana, which investigates homicides and reckless injuries in proceedings that are foreseen long and wired, to the magistrate in Eduardo de Urbano leave. Specialized in economic crime, this judge became famous in 2021 for guaranteeing from the Provincial Court of Madrid as a rapporteur of a Racist Vox poster against immigrants who was considered by the leftist parties « Xenophobic and racist. » Urban has declined to attend to this newspaper.