Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Wednesday expressed “full support” for his predecessor José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero after a court placed his Socialist ally under investigation for alleged influence peddling.
Tuesday’s bombshell announcement piles more pressure on Sánchez, already weakened by corruption investigations affecting relatives and former top political allies as well as a string of heavy regional electoral defeats.
“Full collaboration with the justice system, full respect for the presumption of innocence, and my full support for president Zapatero,” Sánchez told parliament in his first public comments on the investigation targeting the Socialist titan.
READ MORE: Spain’s former PM under investigation for influence peddling
Zapatero, who governed from 2004 to 2011, has been summoned to testify on June 2nd in connection with crimes allegedly committed during the bailout of small airline Plus Ultra in 2021.
Zapatero will be questioned as the “alleged head of a stable and hierarchical influence-peddling structure” which “used opaque financial channels” to “conceal the origin and destination of funds” and obtain bribes, said Spain’s top criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional.
Authorities are also looking into possible commissions and financial flows connected to the case.
Zapatero has consistently denied having ever received any payments from Plus Ultra or having committed any wrongdoing, reiterating his innocence on Tuesday.
While other Spanish prime ministers have been called to testify in corruption cases, this is the first time in Spain’s modern history that a former premier has been placed under formal investigation.
Zapatero was not initially closely aligned with Sánchez but has in recent years become one of his top defenders.
