The legal troubles embarrassing Spain’s leftist government returned to the fore on Tuesday as the top prosecutor was formally sent to trial a day before a court appearance by the prime minister’s wife.
A slew of investigations targeting Socialist premier Pedro Sánchez’s relatives and former close allies have heaped pressure on him and threatened the demise of his minority coalition.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday formally sent top prosecutor Álvaro García Ortiz to trial with a bail of €150,000 ($176,000) for allegedly breaching judicial secrecy against the right-wing opposition.
García Ortiz is accused of leaking case files about Alberto Gonzalez Amador, a businessman under investigation for alleged tax fraud who is the partner of the Madrid region’s influential conservative leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
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Her Popular Party (PP) has accused Sánchez’s allies of organising the leak to damage Ayuso, a darling of the Spanish right.
Appointed by Sánchez’s government in 2022, García Ortiz has denied leaking any information about Gonzalez Amador, either personally or through his office.
A date is yet to be announced, but the trial became inevitable after García Ortiz’s final appeal was rejected in July.
The PP renewed its calls for García Ortiz to quit on Tuesday, with its leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo writing on X: “The institutional damage to which Pedro Sánchez subjects our country is unbearable.”
On Wednesday, Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, is due to appear in a Madrid court accused of embezzling public funds, part of a long-running probe into alleged corruption and influence peddling.
Investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado began the saga in April 2024 by opening an investigation to determine whether she exploited her position for private benefit.
The latest development centres on whether an official employed in the premier’s office, Cristina Álvarez, worked for Gómez during her past academic job at Madrid’s Complutense University.
Gómez denied wrongdoing during a court hearing in December 2024, saying she had “nothing to hide”.
Sánchez has dismissed the allegations against his wife as an attempt to undermine his government by the right, which has demanded his resignation.
This month the premier said there were “judges who do politics and politicians who try to do justice” and denounced what he described as spurious complaints by groups with far-right ties.
Separate corruption investigations into Sánchez’s brother and two former Socialist heavyweights have also rocked the government.
