A court in Spain on Monday sentenced a top ex-aide of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, former transport minister José Luis Ábalos, to 24 years in jail for graft.
The Supreme Court also sentenced Ábalos’s former adviser Koldo García to 19 years in jail in one of a string of cases dogging the Socialist-led minority government.
The two men were accused of having pocketed kickbacks for handing out public contracts worth millions of euros for sanitary equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The court found them guilty of membership of a criminal organisation, corruption, embezzlement of public funds and influence peddling.
Prosecutors argued in court that both men had abused their government positions and contacts to favour businessman Victor de Aldama, who has already admitted his role in the vast and complex affair.
The fall of Ábalos – one of Sanchez’s closest allies – has embarrassed a prime minister who took power in 2018 promising to clean up Spanish politics.
Recordings of private conversations between the accused, leaked to the media, frequently mention cash and prostitutes, dealing another blow to a Socialist party which has long championed women’s rights.
Separate corruption investigations into Sánchez’s wife Begoña Gómez and his brother David have piled further pressure on the government, one of Europe’s few leftist administrations.
A court on Saturday ordered Gómez to stand trial by jury for corruption and banned her from leaving the country.
She is accused of having exploited her position as Sánchez’s wife for private gain.
David Sánchez, a composer and orchestra director, is accused of receiving preferential treatment in obtaining a public-sector job. A verdict is due in that case.
Sánchez, a canny politician famous for coming out on top in dire situations, has repeatedly rejected the opposition’s calls to step down and call early elections over the mounting corruption scandals.
He has not been named in any of the cases.
Sánchez is due to address parliament on Wednesday on the various judicial investigations affecting his entourage.
