Cerdán will defend his innocence and deny any arrangements with Ábalos and his advisor.

Former PSOE organizational secretary Santos Cerdán testified today before the Supreme Court as a suspect in the case, citing "consistent evidence" that he formed a criminal organization to rig contracts, first in Navarre and then using the Ministry of Transport, with José Luis Ábalos as its head and Koldo García as its advisor.

The Supreme Court judge investigating this plot, Leopoldo Puente, has summoned Cerdán, who was Pedro Sánchez's right-hand man in the party, for investigation for alleged involvement in a criminal organization and bribery. The judge agreed to this measure after receiving a report from the Civil Guard's central operational unit (UCO) that placed Cerdán at the epicenter of the plot.

The Socialist Party's third-in-command will try to suppress Koldo García's recordings.

After learning that Koldo García, with whom he began his career in Navarra in 2015, had recorded him discussing possible rigging of public contracts in exchange for a bribe, Cerdán resigned from his position in the PSOE and surrendered his parliamentary seat in the Congress of Deputies.

Even so, he denies any such claim. The line of defense he and his lawyer have devised is to deny the majority and attempt to nullify the proceedings by questioning García's recordings or documents seized from the records of several suspects.

Cerdán maintains that he doesn't recognize García's audio recordings, meaning they are manipulated or invalid. This is the same argument used by many of the recordings made by former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo. In the commission of inquiry being held in Congress for the so-called Operation Catalunya, several of the attendees who were recorded by Villarejo discussing possible investigations into pro-independence leaders denied that it was his voice so as not to have to provide explanations, for example, former PP general secretary and former minister María Dolores de Cospedal.

In the recordings made by former councilman José Luis Peñas, which prompted the investigation into the so-called Gürtel case, those involved tried until the very end to have the recordings declared invalid, as they were the basis for the investigation. However, both the National Court and the Supreme Court confirmed that Peñas had recorded himself with third parties, and there was no evidence that they had been manipulated.

Cerdán will now use this same strategy, even though the UCO (Central Court of Justice) has already assessed the validity of Koldo García's recordings. Another piece of evidence he will attempt to dismantle is the private contract signed between him and Antxón Alonso, sole director of Servinabar 2000, by which the latter sold 40% of the company's shares to Cerdán. The contract includes a CIF number that does not match the one on the seal stamped on the company's contract by one digit. His defense will attempt to raise concerns about manipulation. The judge will now have to assess whether this was a mere mistake or a ruse to link Cerdán to the corrupt operation.

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This document is key because Servinabar received several public contracts, mainly in Navarra, in a joint venture with Acciona, and is one of the companies investigated by the Supreme Court's investigator.

In its report, the UCO identifies three companies favored by Cerdán to be awarded the contract: Acciona, Opr, and Lic. The Socialist leader, then the party's territorial coordination secretary, allegedly used García to channel his rigging to the Ministry of Transport between 2018 and 2021, while Ábalos was minister.

The report highlights that Cerdán's relationship with García began in 2015 with economic interests from his time in Navarre. In 2017, when the Navarrese leader was sent to Madrid, he brought García with him, who initially joined as a driver and eventually became an advisor. And after Cerdán's dismissal, Cerdán did not sever his ties. In fact, García continued to demand money owed from him for contract awards. In 2022, García continued to maintain relationships with businessmen despite being out of the ministry.