The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz is investigating an alleged scheme dedicated to sabotaging judicial processes affecting the PSOE and the Government and the payments that would have been made for them from the management of the socialist party.
“If there are new irregular behaviors, we will act with the same firmness as we have acted before,” Pedro Sánchez guaranteed this Wednesday from Rome, after the meeting he held with Pope Leo XIV while agents from the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit (UCO) returned to the PSOE headquarters to request information about the Leire Díez case.
The operational central unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard went this Wednesday early in the morning to the national headquarters of the PSOE, on Ferraz street in Madrid, to request documentation within the framework of the investigation into the so-called Leire case, according to police sources confirmed to La Vanguardia.
Former president José María Aznar has made a call to the responsibility of citizens to defend liberal democracy, which in his opinion is in grave danger due to the attack of the “detestable” right- and left-wing populisms. In his speech at the IX Ibero-American Congress of CEAPI, held in Mexico City, Aznar emphasized that “if there are responsible citizens” capable of speaking and acting “then liberal democracies will resist and freedom will triumph again.” He was not more explicit, although the message is very similar to the “whoever can, should” phrase he himself revived yesterday in a video, referring to the investigation opened against former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero sold to the businessman Julio Martínez Martínez, located at the center of the plot investigated by judge José Luis Calama, a house in Almería in 2011, the last year of his term as President of the Government, according to the report from the National Office for Fraud Investigation (ONIF) submitted to the case file, which does not specify the exact date of the transaction.
The relationship between Plus Ultra and Julio Martínez Martínez, the friend and alleged frontman of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was very close and was further strengthened thanks to various contracts, which have led to the indictment of the former Prime Minister. On December 11, 2025, the judicial police searched Martínez’s homes. They found 268,000 euros in cash hidden in various places such as a golf cart. They also found several contracts that have proven very revealing for the investigation.
The DelcyGate, as the meeting on January 20, 2020, at Barajas airport between the former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos and the now acting president of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez – who was banned from the Schengen area by the European Union – is known, has landed in the Plus Ultra Case file. The commissioner in charge of the Madrid airport on the night of the murky stopover, Jesús María Gómez Martín, was able to provide “favors,” such as allegedly avoiding customs controls for the investigated Venezuelan magnates, in exchange for “rewards.”
The slogan “no to war” can take on different variations, such as “no to hunger.” The first stop on Pedro Sánchez’s trip to Rome was a conference of the FAO, the United Nations agency for food, headquartered in the Italian capital, titled “Food Security and Nutrition Under Pressure: Consequences of the Conflict in the Middle East.”
José María Aznar has also wanted to comment on the indictment of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for alleged corruption crimes in the Plus Ultra case. The former Prime Minister has stated that in the “unsustainable” situation that Spain is going through, his phrase that “those who can, should do” “makes more sense than ever.”
The indictment of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for alleged influence peddling in the Plus Ultra case brings to the table a debate that has not been resolved in Spain: what can former presidents do to make a living when they leave Moncloa? The reality today is that they can basically do the same as any other citizen, but with a much larger network of contacts and a greater capacity for influence. The statute of former presidents is regulated by a minimal royal decree, which does not impose any obligations, incompatibilities, or restrict their private activities, beyond the legal limits that apply to any citizen. And that nebulous area in which they remain is certainly an advantage, but also a risk.