A day after the Spanish justice minister, Dolores Delgado, told the Senate she would not resign over previous leaked audio in which she's apparently heard making homophobic and sexist comments, another recording of her has emerged. This time, she is heard claiming that she had seen Supreme Court judges and prosecutors with minors during a trip to Colombia. The audio comes from a dinner with senior police officers. She says that, during a work trip to Colombia which lasted a number of days, "a group of Spanish judges and prosecutors ended up with minors". The recordings, like the others published in recent days, were obtained by online newspaper Moncloa.com.
The trip was to attend the Programa Aula Iberoamericana, a forum for legal training and exchange directed by judges under the coordination of the General Council of the Judiciary, set up in 1997. One of the annual meetings, although it's unclear which year, was held in Colombia, in Cartagena de Indias.
Delgado, who was then a National Audience court prosecutor, travelled with a group of senior Spanish legal officials, she says in the leaked audio, recorded during a dinner with police on 23rd October 2009.
"I'll tell it now", said the now minister, after another diner appears to mention the story: "We were on a trip to Cartagena de Indias... in terms of women, there was this magistrate [from the National Audience] and myself. Then we were going with a series of people from the Supreme Court, from wherever... from the Public Prosecution Service, professors". She says they tried to meet with their male colleagues, who said no. Instead, the two women alone, "word of honour", went for dinner and then for drinks.
The surprise comes when "we see the group of guys from the Supreme Court and the Prosecution [with] girls who were underage". "17-year-olds," another voice says.
Delgado goes on to say that the men "leapt up when they saw us, they started worrying that they'd seen us". She says they claimed the women were "waitresses from the hotel they felt sorry for".
Delgado's response
On Tuesday, the minister claimed that the earlier leaks had been edited and repeated that she had the support of the prime minister. She said she was the victim of "execrable attacks" and said that the whole recording hadn't been published, depriving her apparent remarks of context. In the earlier recording, she apparently called her now colleague, interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, a maricón (roughly equivalent to "faggot") and expressed a preference for courts formed by men.