“Begoña tells me to tell you that she would love for you to continue as sponsors of the Chair, even if it is with a lower amount. We are willing to collaborate with you in whatever you need”. The message was sent in February of this year by a Moncloa advisor, Cristina Álvarez, to the director of Institutional Communication and CSR of Reale, Pilar Suárez-Inclán, with the aim that the company would not abandon the sponsorship of the chair in Social-Competitive Transformation of the wife of the President of the Government, investigated for influence peddling, corruption in business, misappropriation and intrusiveness.
This is stated in one of the e-mails included in the summary of the case led by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado, head of the 41st Court of Instruction of Madrid, a document to which has had access. 20minutes. The email, which sheds light on the role of this government advisor in the professional activities of Begoña Gómez. Reale, together with the Fundación la Caixa, has financed the chair of the president’s wife by contributing 120,000 euros since 2020, the date of creation of the chair.
Although in this email the advisor simply signs as “Cristina Álvarez”, in another of the messages included in the summary of the case, also sent to Suarez-Inclán, she signs as “director of Programs of the General Secretariat of the Presidency”, with the letterhead of Moncloa.
This information provided in the last volumes of the summary of the case has led the popular accusations to send a document, received in court on October 25, in which they demand to summon Álvarez as a witness to testify before Judge Peinado. In the aforementioned document, the accusations recall that Juan Carlos Doadrio, former vice-rector of the Complutense University of Madrid, mentioned Álvarez during his testimony before the investigator on July 21.
“Cristina Álvarez was mentioned by Juan Carlos Doadrio as a person who accompanied the investigated Begoña Gómez when she went to the UCM”, the accusations explain, and then add that her appearance could exclude details about the meetings that Gómez held in Moncloa with two of the accused in the plot: the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés and the rector of the Complutense, Joaquín Goyache.