It has been 14 months since Íñigo Ramírez de Haro complained against his brother Fernando and his wife, Esperanza Aguirre, for the inheritance of his father and the sale of the portrait of Goya that was owned by the family, until in 2012 it was transferred to the businessman Juan Miguel Villar Mir for more than 5 million euros. In this time, the judge in the case has only ordered a couple of proceedings – which have not yet been completed – has questioned the complainant and the art expert who was involved in the sale of the painting. The brother-in-law of Esperanza Aguirre imputed to his older brother the crimes of false documentation, fraud and fraud to the Treasury, among others, all linked to the sale of the work of art that saved the husband of the former president of Madrid from ruin.
The Prosecutor’s Office believes that Esperanza Aguirre’s husband could have evaded taxes with the sale of the Goya.
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The delay in the process and the judge’s attitude have led Aguirre’s brother-in-law to request that she be removed from the case so that the investigation can continue. In addition, his lawyers have filed a complaint with the disciplinary commission of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to understand that he has committed serious offenses that should be investigated.
This is reflected in a brief submitted by his lawyers on 23 September, to which elDiario.es has had access. In the document they call attention to the limited progress of the investigation and also on the attitude towards the case of the judge, Concepción Jerez García, head of the Court of Instruction number 26 of Madrid. The episode that has led to the recusal is the interrogation of James McDonald, director of Sotheby’s London and responsible in that company for private sales of old masters.
McDonald was the expert called by the Ramírez de Haro family to check if the portrait of Don Valentín Belvís y Moncada had been painted by Francisco de Goya when its authorship was still in doubt. The expert helped them to confirm it, appraised the painting at a minimum of seven and a maximum of eight million euros and guided them through the sale process. The painting was finally kept by the businessman Juan Miguel Villar Mir for 5.2 million euros, less than the price recommended by McDonald, and without the painting being sold to the artist.The administration would have been protected by the administration.
The senior official of Sotheby’s testified as a witness by videoconference on September 21 in the courts of Plaza Castilla for this matter. According to the brief presented by Íñigo Ramírez de Haro’s lawyer, the judge constantly interrupted him during his questioning and altered “the normal development of the interrogation”. “She has obstructed the exercise of the right of defence by the prosecution, failing to give due consideration to his lawyer in the exercise of his duty to defend my rights,” he adds.
“This is the witness who participated in the sale of Goya’s painting in the allegedly criminal circumstances for whose evidence he has been asked to testify,” says the letter, which also affects the judge has not respected the duty of impartiality.
No evidence of McDonald’s statement
At the end of the court appearance of the expert, the defense of Íñigo Ramírez de Haro verbally requested a copy of the video of the statement. The document reflects that the court secretary promised to deliver it the following day. On the afternoon of the 21st, and in view of what happened in the deposition, Íñigo Ramírez de Haro’s lawyer presented the recusal of the judge and again requested the video in writing in order to be able to document his protests about the interrogation.
On September 22, Iñigo Ramirez de Haro’s lawyer went to the court for the video, as instructed. The court officer asked him to return two hours later. He was then received by the lawyer for the Administration of Justice, who asked him to explain exactly what he was requesting; the lawyer told him that in the urgent motion for recusal he was asking for the video with which to prove it.
The lawyer refused and said that she would process the motion on a first-come, first-served basis. The lawyer then asked her to put on record that she had requested the video and that it had not been provided; the lawyer again refused.
“This refusal has caused a substantial impairment of the complainant’s right of defence. It has deprived him of the immediate means of proof of the acts, facts and moments that took place on September 21 and motivated the challenge presented on the same day. It has The court has made it impossible to complete it immediately and has unduly delayed – if it has not finally endangered – the normal development of the recusal procedure within the short legally established time limits,” the brief states.
14 months with hardly any progress in the case
In addition to the incident with McDonald’s statement and the video that shows it, Íñigo Ramírez de Haro’s defense states in its brief that the judge has barely made any progress in the investigation. The complaint was filed on July 13, 2020 and the complainant’s statement was not taken until April 6, 2021 “with questions aimed at trying to get him to testify against himself,” the complaint to the CGPJ states.
The judge has not called to testify during all this time to any of the defendants -among which are the own Aguirre and Villar Mir-. The defense has requested a total of 48 proceedings on alleged crimes of forgery, fraud, tax fraud and others, of which only three have been accepted: the statement of McDonald, the addressed to the Community of Madrid to know if it has registered the Goya as a Cultural Interest, which has not been met after five months, and sent to the notary to know the deed of sale, who has refused to provide the alleged title of ownership of the painting.
Nor has it accepted for now the request of the Prosecutor’s Office to require the Tax Agency to request Fernando Ramírez de Haro’s income tax return to determine whether he committed a tax offence by not declaring the sale of the painting the previous year.
The letter to the Judiciary also states that the judge has not resolved the appeal for the Provincial Court to decide whether or not to accept the necessary diligences to advance in the investigation. The appeal was filed four months ago.
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