Prosecutor Backs Indirect Probe into Mazón
- Valencia prosecutors told the Catarroja court to keep pursuing steps tied to an “indirect investigation” of Carlos Mazón’s conduct in the October 29, 2024 DANA disaster. - The filing defends earlier court orders as lawful despite Mazón’s parliamentary immunity, in a case over floods that killed 230 people in Valencia province. - It matters because the TSJ had refused to indict Mazón directly, so scrutiny now shifts to what the trial judge can still probe.
The fight here is about criminal procedure, but the stakes are very concrete. Spain’s courts are still sorting out who may bear legal responsibility for the catastrophic DANA floods that hit Valencia province on October 29, 2024 and left 230 people dead. Now Valencia’s Provincial Prosecutor’s Office has told the investigating judge in Catarroja that she can keep taking steps tied to an “indirect investigation” of former regional president Carlos Mazón’s role. That matters because Mazón is aforado — meaning ordinary trial courts cannot simply indict and investigate him the way they can everyone else. ### What changed now? The new development is a written submission from prosecutor Cristóbal Melgarejo to the Catarroja court. In it, the prosecution backs the judge’s earlier procedural moves and says the resolutions authorizing steps linked to an indirect look at Mazón’s intervention were legally sound. So this is not a direct indictment. But it is the prosecution saying the court does not have to stop looking at facts that may touch him. (valenciaplaza.com) ### What does “indirect investigation” mean? Basically, it is a workaround for a very Spanish legal constraint. If a politician has aforamiento, the lower court cannot investigate that person as a formal suspect. But the lower court can still investigate the broader facts, gather testimony, reconstruct timelines, and examine decisions by other officials — even when that evidence may shed light on what the protected official did or knew. The catch is that the court has to avoid turning those steps into a disguised direct probe. (valenciaplaza.com) ### Why is Mazón protected this way? Because after leaving the presidency he remained a deputy in Les Corts Valencianes, which preserves his aforado status. That is why the Catarroja judge previously sent a reasoned submission to the Valencian High Court, the TSJCV, asking it to consider whether Mazón should be investigated there instead. In March 2026, the TSJCV said no — at least for now — and returned the case to the lower court, saying the available indications were not enough for a direct criminal case against him. (europapress.es) ### So didn’t the high court already clear him? Not exactly. The TSJCV refused to open a direct case against Mazón, but that is not the same as declaring the matter closed forever. It means the higher court did not see sufficient grounds at that stage. The underlying investigation into the disaster response kept moving in Catarroja, centered on how warnings, emergency coordination, and decision-making unfolded during the floods. (europapress.es) ### What is the judge actually trying to establish? The core question is who had decision-making power during the emergency, when key information arrived, and why public alerts and protective actions were delayed. Earlier rulings in the case have focused heavily on the late convening of the Cecopi emergency coordination body and on whether the population warning system was activated too late. That factual map matters for everyone in the chain — including Mazón, even if he cannot yet be directly investigated in this court. (europapress.es) ### Why is the prosecution’s stance important? Because prosecutors do not just argue guilt or innocence — they also shape what investigative steps survive procedural fights. Here, the prosecution is pushing back against the idea that any line of inquiry touching Mazón must automatically stop. It is also notable because the same office had recently backed Mazón’s request to appear in the case and access the file, which shows the procedural battle is getting more layered, not less. (poderjudicial.es) ### What happens next? The judge can keep building the factual record, but she still has to respect the line between investigating the disaster and directly targeting an aforado politician. If new evidence gets stronger, the issue could go back upstairs again. That is why this filing matters — it keeps Mazón under legal scrutiny without crossing the formal threshold the high court rejected in March. (valenciaplaza.com) ### Bottom line? This is a procedural win for the investigation, not a final turn in the case. Mazón has not been indicted. But the prosecution just helped preserve a path for the Catarroja judge to keep testing the facts around his conduct in one of Valencia’s deadliest modern disasters. (valenciaplaza.com)
