Alex Trelinski
THE Spanish government’s special commissioner appointed to oversee reconstruction in Valencia following the October 29 floods has resigned.
Jose Maria Angel, 68, is being investigated by Anti-Corruption prosecutors over whether he faked a University of Valencia degree in Archival and Library Science in the early eighties which helped him secure a civil servant job for the Valencia Provincial Council.
Maria Angel has also quit his position as president of the PSOE socialist party in the Valencia region.
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He was previously the Valencia director of emergencies within the former left-wing coalition government under Ximo Puig until it lost power in the 2023 regional elections.
He has been replaced by Zulima Perez, who held several roles during the Puig administration.
The Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency instigated a probe into Maria Angel after receiving an anonymous complaint in April and has passed on a file to the prosecutor’s office.
It’s been reported that the course that Maria Angel got a degree for, did not start being taught at the University of Valencia until 1990.
In a resignation letter to the Minister of Territorial Policy, Angel Víctor Torres, Maria Angel said there had been ‘repeated attitudes of resentment’ towards him since he was appointed commissioner ‘with the sole objective of trying to undermine, damage and stain a trajectory of diligent and transparent service’.
He added that he will defend ‘with all his time and strength, wherever appropriate, the truth, his “honesty and honour, which have been called into question by an inquisitorial, secret, ill-intentioned procedure and without the right of reply’.
He stated that his job with the Valencia Provincial Council was obtained ‘in accordance with the law and the procedure’.
“I want to make it clear that I have never falsified any document and of course I have never used any false document to access any position,” he stressed.
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