Valencia prosecutors want Mazón charged over deadly floods

Prosecutors back investigating Mazón over the handling of the floods

The Valencia prosecutor's office wants the courts to investigate as soon as possible the incivil responsibility of Carlos Mazón, president of the Valencian regional government, over his handling of the dana flash floods that on 29 October caused 223 deaths and left tens of thousands of victims in the province of Valencia. The public prosecutor's office has filed a brief with the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community, which agreed to merge into a single case the seven complaints and lawsuits filed against him. And among the papers is a detail that does not help: one of the lawsuits claims that the regional leader spent several hours at midday on that 29 October having lunch at a restaurant in the regional capital.

Why prosecutors are asking for a single investigation into the seven lawsuits

The brief, signed by prosecutor María José Montesinos de Lago, describes a single investigation as "more than reasonable" given the scale of the case, the complexity of the events, the number of officials accused, the foreseeable difficulty of the investigation and the huge number of victims, witnesses and experts. In other words: the case is too big to split up. Beneath all the complaints, it adds, lies the same attribution of facts, "regardless of the different legal classifications".

Of those seven, six point to Mazón or Salomé Pradas, the former regional minister for the Interior and Justice. Only one asks to investigate any other official in whom incivil responsibility is observed as a result of the inquiries. One of the CGT union's lawsuits also names the director general of Emergencies, Alberto Javier Martín Sarracena, and the regional secretary Emilio Argüeso.

The alleged offences and the nuance the prosecutors themselves add

The accusing parties charge Mazón and Pradas with abuse of authority, reckless injury and homicide, failure to provide assistance, reckless damage and offences against workers' rights, for failing to take decisions that, in their view, would have avoided or mitigated the outcome. All of them mention the neglect of their duties as the region's top authorities and the warning the Spanish weather agency Aemet raised to red level for Valencia that same Tuesday.

Here comes the awkward point for the complainants. The prosecutor's office speaks of a "generic cause-and-effect relationship" with an attribution of incivil responsibility "of an objective nature", assessed solely on the outcome and regardless of the specific involvement of each accused, which to date "is not individually established". In other words: the reproach is clear, the individual chain of blame is not yet. And in a courtroom, that difference weighs more than any headline.

The legal privilege that puts Mazón's indictment on hold

Mazón enjoys legal privilege (aforado) before the TSJCV, which is competent to investigate and charge the regional president if there are indications of wrongdoing. The prosecutor's office argues that the investigation does not start there: the accusing parties must wait for an investigating court to complete its inquiries into the involvement or inaction of each defendant and, only if sufficient evidence emerges against Mazón, submit a formal report (exposición razonada) to the Valencian High Court so it can decide.

While the judicial route sorts out its paperwork, politics has already made its move: VOX voted against the censure and resignation of Mazón in the Valencian parliament, in a secret ballot, saving the regional leader from a rebuff other parties took for granted. The episode is summed up by a phrase that circulated about the session: saving private Mazón.

The key to the case may lie not in the 223 deaths, but in a smaller number: of the seven lawsuits merged together, six point to the same two people. The seventh, the only one that names no one in particular, may decide how far the case goes.