Last January, the face-off between Salomé Pradas, former Interior Minister, and José Manuel Cuenca, former chief of staff to Carlos Mazón, highlighted several contradictions in their statements. Pradas, under investigation in the case, emphasized that she tried to contact Mazón before sending the ES Alert, but found herself “alone” during the emergency.
The debate focused on the management of official mobile phones. Cuenca explained that he changed his device in the summer of 2025, with the investigation into the catastrophe already underway, due to lack of capacity. He stated that during the information transfer process, data from approximately one year was lost, and that he reset the phone to factory settings before returning it to the Generalitat Valenciana when he ceased to be a high-ranking official, following Mazón's resignation in December.
“"I wasn't going to hand it over with photos of my family."
In response, Salomé Pradas defended her decision to keep her phone and the data it contained. She asserted that she had sent an “express message” to the Generalitat Valenciana to ensure her mobile was not tampered with or reset. After being dismissed from her position by Mazón in December 2024, she paid for the device and kept it to prevent data loss.
“"You can keep the phone."
Cuenca acknowledged that he had the option to purchase the phone, as Pradas did, but chose to hand it over to the Generalitat without his personal data, insisting that he had transferred all relevant information to a new, higher-capacity device.
