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The Spanish 87-year-old Maricarmen, whose story of eviction from her longtime apartment in Madrid ignited a wave of housing protests across Spain, reportedly sat on the board of a company that invested in property in the 1990s.
At least, that is what the conservative Spanish newspaper OkDiario claims in an unconfirmed story that has not prompted a response from her circle.
The outlet says it is relying on a simple extract from the Companies Registry and on the ID card of Maricarmen, who died suddenly earlier this month two weeks after her eviction.
According to these documents, María del Carmen Abacal Martín was appointed a director of Jinur S.A. on 1 July 1994 and served as deputy secretary until her removal was accepted by the board a year later. The identification rests on her name and on her year of birth, 1938, which matches her age of 87 when she was evicted.
Jinur’s stated purpose was investing in property for subsequent rental. It shared an address on Madrid’s Pradillo street with Fieba S.A., the company from which she and three other directors had come.
According to OkDiario, Maricarmen even served as sole director at Fieba for several years. However, the article cites a 1982 notice in the Official State Gazette (BOE) that refers to a company engaged in “property investment”, and then treats it as a real-estate agency.
Of her day-to-day activities, there is no trace. At no point does the piece explain what she actually did as deputy secretary, nor does it claim that she held shares or owned property.
OkDiario uses these details to challenge the account it attributes to a 2024 interview in El País, in which the woman is said to have recounted that she worked as secretary to the board of a pharmaceutical company. According to the paper, none of the companies it reviewed has that corporate purpose. It is possible that she worked for some other company at some point in her life, but the article does not go into that.
OkDiario is a conservative outlet that was founded in 2015 by former director of El Mundo Eduardo Inda. His outlet has been accused by other media of manipulating the news to create controversy.
Last year, Inda was ordered to pay €18,000 in damages to Pablo Iglesias for publishing false claims and disseminating a fake bank document as evidence.
According to a study by the University of Valencia, in November 2017, it was the worst-rated media outlet in Spain, although it is one of the most widely read.
An eviction backed by a Supreme Court ruling
None of this changes what actually happened. In 1956, Maricarmen’s parents signed an old-style rent-controlled lease for the flat on Sainz de Baranda street, which passed to her in 2005 when her mother died. The eviction was finally carried out on 23 September, at the fourth attempt, with half of Spain out on the streets in protest. It followed a legal battle with Urbagestión, the company managing the flat, which reached the Supreme Court, where the judges ruled in the company’s favour in 2024.
Maricarmen died on 7 October at the Gregorio Marañón hospital, where she had been admitted since the eviction. Despite an agreement that she would be allowed to return home, she was never able to open the door of her building again.