The Council of Ministers denies pardon to former judge Salvador Alba

The Council of Ministers has rejected this Tuesday to grant a pardon to former judge Salvador Alba, sentenced to six and a half years in prison for bribery, prevarication and forgery for manipulating a criminal investigation to harm Judge Victoria Rosell when she was a deputy of Podemos in Congress.

Executive sources have informed Agencia EFE of the denial of the pardon, which was opposed by all the mandatory reports requested.

After stalling his entry into prison for months with various appeals, the former judge finally entered the Las Palmas I penitentiary center on October 18 to serve the sentence. In March, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) had already removed his status as a magistrate.

"My greatest achievement is this: there will be no more victims. Denouncing corruption, even in the judicial career itself, is very hard. But this has been worth it," said Rosell, current Government Delegate against Gender Violence.

The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands considered it proven that, when Alba replaced Rosell in a court in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, he offered procedural advantages to a businessman prosecuted for a millionaire fraud against Social Security (the president of UD Las Palmas, Miguel Ángel Ramírez) if he declared a series of issues that would allow him to accuse the then deputy of Podemos of having delayed a judicial case for personal interests.

It also proved that Alba included false data in the reports on Rosell that he sent to the Supreme Court and that contributed to its Criminal Chamber opening proceedings against her on the eve of the 2016 general elections. Rosell resigned from running again for Congress, although she was later acquitted of all charges.