MADRID, Spain – The former president of Plus Ultra, Julio Martínez Sola, has confirmed during his testimony before a National Court judge that the airline allocated one percent of the 53-million-euro bailout granted during the pandemic to compensate former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for his alleged mediation in securing the rescue, though he did not specify what kind of management Zapatero actually performed. Martínez Sola made the statement during a nearly three-hour testimony before Judge José Luis Calama, who is investigating the Plus Ultra case and has imputing Zapatero as the alleged leader of a network of influence peddling surrounding the bailout awarded by Pedro Sánchez’s government in 2021 and other operations.
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Martínez Sola asserted that the airline paid approximately 530,000 euros to Julio Martínez Martínez, considered Zapatero’s business partner, because Plus Ultra’s situation was critical and, faced with uncertainty, they deemed it necessary to pay to ensure the former socialist leader would intercede on their behalf. The former executive indicated that the airline did not monitor the management Zapatero might have carried out, nor does he know how Zapatero and his partner distributed the money, stressing that what mattered to the airline was the success of the bailout. He confirmed, however, that Zapatero, who in his June testimony denied having exerted any influence, called him from a hidden number one year before the public aid was granted.
Martínez Sola also stated that the reports produced by Análisis Relevante, Martínez Martínez’s company, were of no practical use to the airline and that their ultimate purpose was to secure the rescue, adding that he assumed Martínez Martínez was speaking on Zapatero’s behalf. The testimony came after both Martínez Sola and former CEO Roberto Roselli, also imputed and summoned for Tuesday, sent separate letters to the judge in July, hours before resigning from their positions at the company, acknowledging that they paid substantial sums of money to Martínez Martínez for Zapatero’s alleged mediation. According to the former executives, they were fully aware that Martínez Martínez, owner of Análisis Relevante, and Zapatero intended to be paid for the management to be carried out, a condition they accepted as a last resort to save the company, even though they were unaware of any internal agreements between the two.
The defence for both former executives described that intention to collect payment as a kickback, citing a conversation intercepted by the National Police between Roselli and Rodolfo Reyes, a Venezuelan businessman and former board member of the airline, in which the former CEO remarked that the payment would come through that channel. Martínez Sola and Roselli admitted that they never obtained definitive proof of the specific actions carried out to influence or favour the granting of the SEPI bailout to Plus Ultra, but they conceded that, as a desperate measure, the airline assumed it had to contract Martínez Martínez for that purpose, aware of his relationship with Zapatero. The airline paid substantial sums, namely one percent of the rescue amount, for these services, which they euphemistically called accompaniment work.
The payment of 530,000 euros was made in instalments between 2020 and 2025, with 249,000 euros paid to Análisis Relevante, 98,617 euros to Voli Analítica and 110,799 euros to Domotic Europe, companies linked to Martínez Martínez. Although Martínez Martínez initially intended to receive the full liquid amount of the committed 530,000 euros, he eventually accepted that the payments would include 69,000 euros in kind, consisting of business-class flight tickets that Plus Ultra made available to him during 2021 and subsequent years. Approximately 40 invoices were issued with monthly fees ranging between 6,050 and 7,250 euros under the concept of monthly fees for report preparation, even though no such report was ever produced or the six or seven reports delivered were irrelevant to Plus Ultra and merely served as a cover activity.
The airline attempted to conduct a complete and more accurate regularisation of the 530,000-euro payment to the companies of the alleged network, but that effort was frustrated by the police operation, as the final account dating was never carried out. They also admitted that additional payments were made to Zapatero’s partner, the value of which they did not specify, in exchange for intensive work the businessman carried out in Venezuela, including negotiations to defer a debt with Petróleos de Venezuela.
The defence for both men placed the first steps of the operation in April 2020, when the airspace shutdown during the coronavirus lockdown created an urgent need for liquidity. Martínez Sola and Roselli indicated that Reyes contacted the former to inquire about contacts they could reach with people in positions of influence to facilitate access to any kind of aid.
Following Reyes’s guidance, Martínez Sola was told that Zapatero could help and that both Zapatero and Martínez Martínez would get in touch. Indeed, the following day, 30 April 2020, Martínez Sola received a call from a hidden number, which turned out to be José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, with the conversation lasting approximately ten minutes. During the call, Martínez Sola briefed Zapatero on the company’s dire financial situation and the need to access an ICO credit. In response, Zapatero indicated that his intervention could be helpful and that he would carry out the appropriate management, establishing Martínez Martínez as his point of contact. No fees were discussed during the conversation, nor did Zapatero request anything in return for his management.
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The defence acknowledged that Plus Ultra has made mistakes, but argued that this does not mean the company is a shell corporation or not engaged in fully legitimate business activity. They pointed to the airline’s economic evolution, sustained employment volume, recurrent payroll payments and contributions to Social Security and the Treasury as evidence of an active business organisation with the capacity for continuous service provision and a verifiable positive economic impact on Spanish society. They attributed the company’s involvement in an alleged money laundering and influence peddling network to a desperate situation of obtaining liquidity born of a dire economic climate rather than any inherent illegitimacy in the airline’s core operations.
