Former Socialist delegate Sabalete investigated for embezzlement in Jaén Training case
The UCO places Irene Sabalete at the centre of a scheme of irregular subsidies in the SAE between 2009 and 2012. The former delegate was already arrested in 2015 for pressuring employees to campaign for the PSOE.
The UCO reactivates the political strand of the Training case and implicates Sabalete in a subsidies scheme
The latest report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Guardia Civil, delivered to judge José Ignacio Vilaplana in the framework of the Training case, places Irene Sabalete—former Employment delegate of the Andalusian Regional Government in Jaén—at the centre of a "coordinated" network that is alleged to have embezzled public funds through the irregular granting of subsidies between 2009 and 2012. According to ABC, the report reactivates the so-called political strand of the case and reopens one of the most controversial episodes of the Andalusian regional administration.
The UCO identifies indicators of crimes of embezzlement of public funds and misconduct in the actions of those in charge of the Andalusian Employment Service (SAE), both in the central services and in the provincial delegations. The document names nine former delegates, including Sabalete, who at the time declared themselves as investigated parties in a case that was shelved by the previous investigating judge, María Ángeles Núñez Bolaños, and reopened by the Provincial Court of Seville in 2019.
The February 2012 meeting and electoral pressure
Sabalete's name has been linked for years to an episode recorded in audio. In early February 2012—a month and a half before the regional elections in which the PSOE saw its historical dominance in Andalusia at risk—the then delegate convened more than a dozen directors of the Territorial Units of Employment, Local Development and Technology (Utedlt) at the provincial Employment headquarters in Jaén.
In a recording lasting almost five minutes, Sabalete conveyed an unequivocal directive to them: "I have to say this very clearly: if we do not win the elections, you are not going to continue working in the Andalusian Regional Government." For nearly two hours she instructed her subordinates to visit entrepreneurs who were recipients of R&D aid, risk prevention and training, and to ask them to vote in favour of the PSOE, touring the territory door to door, "like Jehovah's Witnesses."
The message about job security was explicit: "Regardless of each person's ideology, personally you are risking continuing to work here or each one of you will have to fend for yourself as best you can. And the councillor said it without mincing words and I'm telling you too."
Judicial history and political consequences
Sabalete was arrested in March 2015 in the framework of the major operation on training courses and was reported for alleged coercion of her subordinates. The Public Prosecutor, however, found no criminal offence and shelved the investigation for threats. The release of the recordings cost her membership of the PSOE, exclusion from municipal lists and a public apology request from the party.
The 2012 regional elections produced an unexpected result: Javier Arenas (PP) failed to achieve the absolute majority that polls had predicted, and socialist José Antonio Griñán maintained the Presidency of the Regional Government by reaching an agreement with United Left. However, this continuity did not prevent the mass dismissal of the 800 employees who made up the 95 Andalusian Utedlt, although subsequent judgements forced their reinstatement.
The new UCO report
The police report describes a "prolonged dynamic of irregular subsidy grants" marked by serious shortcomings in all phases of the administrative procedure. The investigation covers the conduct of those in charge of the SAE both in the central leadership and in the territorial delegations, and consolidates Sabalete as a key figure in the so-called political strand of the Training case, whose reopening in 2019 by the Provincial Court of Seville once again brought focus to the years of socialist government in the Regional Government.
Source: ABC