Pradas, who is under investigation in the case regarding the management of the emergency, has requested that the handwriting test agreed upon by the investigating judge not be performed on her. According to defense sources, Pradas has judicially admitted authorship of the document that the Deputy Director of Emergencies, Jorge Suárez, provided to the case when he testified as a witness. These are the annotations made on the draft of the alert that reached mobile phones at 8:11 PM on the day of the storm.
The defense maintains that, once authorship is acknowledged to the judge, the handwriting expert test is no longer necessary. They link this to a resolution from the Provincial Court of Valencia from May, which left this possibility open if Pradas appeared in court and recognized the document with all guarantees. The Court had rejected the appeals from Pradas and her former regional Secretary of Emergencies, Emilio Argüeso, also under investigation, against the decision to conduct a handwriting test on them.
The prosecutor had argued that acknowledging authorship did not exempt the investigating judge from verifying it, given that the investigated person could later retract. In that resolution, the court stated that the importance of the document was not disputed, but rather the utility of the expert test to confirm its authorship. It added that, as long as Pradas had not testified before the judge and formally acknowledged the annotations, the diligence could not be considered useless or superfluous.
The Court also pointed out that the investigating judge could summon Pradas for this purpose, that she herself could voluntarily appear to recognize the document, or that she could make any statements she deemed appropriate on the day of the handwriting sample formation. Pradas's defense emphasizes that Suárez declared he took the notes from the CECOPI around 7:45 PM to manage the sending of two Es-Alert messages.
According to the defense's statement, this would demonstrate that by that time, the texts of both alerts had already been decided and authorized, as well as the request for the activation of the Military Emergencies Unit throughout the demarcation of Valencia. Pradas had previously acknowledged authorship of the annotations and had presented a notarized document certifying it.
The notes include instructions such as avoiding travel within the demarcation of Valencia, staying home, moving away from riverbeds and areas close to watercourses, and going to upper floors. They also mention Ribera Alta, Ribera Baixa, l'Horta Sud, and Foia de Bunyol, and the mobilization of the UME.
