Política

The group that was formed in April 2024 to disrupt judicial processes – and those who led them – with little success consisted of nine people, although not all with the same role. There may be more, but now, Judge Santiago Pedraz limits it to them, assigning them the roles of leader, his second-in-command, financiers, and executors. All of them have been caught, as always happens, by new facts that have appeared in another case. Now they will have to provide explanations. Who are they, what connects them, what drives them?

The court judging the Kitchen case, the alleged parapolice operation to spy on the former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas between 2013 and 2015, finished yesterday hearing the recordings submitted as evidence in the case and today will begin to listen to the ten accused, including former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez. The Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 15 years in prison for both.

At least for a few days, from today until June 4, the epicenter of judicial life will move from Madrid to Badajoz. In the Extremadura city, the trial for the alleged irregularities in the 2017 hiring of David Sánchez, brother of the current Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, by the Diputación de Badajoz, begins this Thursday. The oral hearing at the provincial court will put Sánchez and ten other defendants on the bench, for the alleged crimes of malfeasance and influence peddling.

The show is judged by the last act, always meant to dazzle, capture attention, and monopolize the commentary. That is the reality. When the show of judge José Luís Calama has not yet ended on track number one, the UDEF and José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero,…

The relentless succession of information about alleged corruption around the PSOE is already having an effect on Pedro Sánchez’s parliamentary allies. Nerves are beginning to show in some, although for now there are no signs of a possible change of side.

The Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard also appeared yesterday at the headquarters of the armed institute, in the center of Madrid. It did so to collect the documentation of some internal files that were opened against several agents for alleged leaks to the members of the network that intended to sabotage investigations related to the PSOE sphere. Curiously, the delegation of civil guards that burst into the building of the General Directorate was led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, the officer whom the “plumbing” of Ferraz, headed by the former Secretary of Organization Santos Cerdán and the former militant Leire Díez, wanted to see “better dead” so that “he would not become the executioner of everyone.”

The river had been sounding for some time. The name of the “plumber” Leire Díez had started to rumble. the PSOE reduced her to a mere militant. They expelled her and, with that, they thought that once the dog was dead, the rage was over. The greater denial was made, no one knew who this woman was who had held various positions of responsibility in public companies. The imprisonment of the then party organization secretary, Santos Cerdán, in June 2025 made the river sound louder, but Díez’s arrest in December – ordered by the National Court judge Santiago Pedraz – only made things worse for the formation led by Pedro Sánchez for a simple reason: from that very moment the UCO had her phone. Five months later, suspicions have come to light. Pedraz has uncovered a plot, led by Cerdán, whose objective was to destabilize judicial processes affecting the PSOE, the Government, or the president’s family. And all their activities would have been paid with false invoices by Ferraz – the party headquarters –.

The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) is investigating the ERC deputy in the Parliament and former Interior Minister Joan Ignasi Elena and the former ICV coordinator Joan Herrera as necessary accomplices in an alleged crime of administrative misconduct for which the former mayor of Altafulla (Tarragona) and deputy in the Congress for Sumar, Félix Alonso Cantorné, is being investigated in the Supreme Court.

The real political pulse of the day was not taken this Wednesday in the chamber, but a few meters away, in the Plaza de las Cortes. A fire drill forced the evacuation of Congress and pushed deputies, ministers, and advisors into an improvised gathering where, far from the face-to-face confrontations of the control session, interpretations and consequences about the UCO’s entry into Ferraz multiplied. The noise of the debate paused for a few minutes, giving way to countless cross conversations that, between cigarette breaks and searches on mobile phones, allowed some and others to reposition their pieces on a political board that keeps suffering shocks. The PSOE has activated a strategy of resistance and calm, the partners have begun to verbalize their limits, and the PP has opted for patient waiting, convinced that socialist wear and tear will do the work on its own.

A few hours after the entry of agents from the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard into the PSOE headquarters, on Ferraz Street in Madrid, the Senate approved a motion from the PP calling for elections and censuring the Government’s “conduct” regarding the various corruption cases surrounding Pedro Sánchez’s closest circle and being investigated by the Justice system. The initiative passed with the support of 146 senators (PP, Vox, UPN, and Canarian Coalition), while Junts and PNV abstained.