With the parliamentary session concluded after this Thursday’s extraordinary plenary session, the Popular Party does not want the noise surrounding the judicial investigations involving the PSOE to subside. Leading the private prosecution in some of the processes affecting the socialists, the PP once again focuses on the Leire Díez case ―in which an alleged plot aimed at obstructing investigations into the PSOE and the Government is being investigated― and, specifically, on the Director General of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, and her second-in-command, Lieutenant General Manuel Llamas, Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the armed institute. The National Court judge Santiago Pedraz keeps both under investigation for allegedly using the Civil Guard’s disciplinary regime to influence the work of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) in these inquiries.
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Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party has submitted a written statement to the court, made public this Friday, in which they propose to the magistrate the need to take precautionary measures against González and Llamas so that they lose their command capacity over the UCO, considering that “the permanence of those under investigation at the top of the chain of command compromises the integrity of the investigation.” The PP argues that from their positions as top political and operational leaders, González and General Llamas “maintain their direct command capacity intact over the UCO agents themselves whose investigative work would have been sought to neutralize, and over whom they retain powers of direction, assignment, evaluation, disciplinary regime, and allocation of resources.” Therefore, they add, “there is a risk of retaliation against witnesses and agents.”
Therefore, the PP ―which laments the Government’s “passivity” in not having dismissed them and the decision of González and the high command to remain in their posts despite their status as investigated persons― asks Judge Pedraz to prohibit both from “exercising any command authority,” over the unit “and, in particular, over the Economic and Anti-Corruption Crime Department,” headed by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, who is leading the investigations pointing to the Government and Pedro Sánchez’s inner circle. Also, that they be prevented from “initiating, processing, or resolving” internal investigations [the alleged instrument used to influence the inquiries] against their agents, as well as “access to documentation, systems, and files related to the ongoing investigation.” The State Security Forces law already limits the access of police force leaders to judicialized investigations, of which agents only have to report to the judge instructing the case.
The PP has also proposed to Judge Pedraz that González’s predecessor at the head of the Civil Guard, Leonardo Marcos, be summoned as an investigated person, whom several witnesses accuse of having asked the UCO to “keep a low profile” in the investigation into David Sánchez, the president’s brother and recently sentenced to nine years of disqualification for malfeasance. The Popular Party considers that those instructions constitute an interference that “exceeds mere hierarchical supervision” and point to “an eventual coordination” of Marcos with the Leire Díez plot. The Deputy Secretary for Sectoral Coordination of the Popular Party, Alma Ezcurra, stated at a press conference this Friday that “these cases [referring to the summaries affecting the government] must be able to be investigated freely and it makes no sense for them to continue exercising command over them.”
UCO reports indicate that the plot led by the former PSOE militant sought to “instrumentalize” internal investigations as a “pressure mechanism” to create a “climate” of intimidation among the agents participating in the inquiries. And that, to set them in motion, the former socialist militant leveraged the prior “relationship” she had with the director of the armed institute. González, for her part, defended herself before Judge Pedraz a week ago, when she declared that she feels like a political “victim” of the alleged plot led by Santos Cerdán, former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, and Leire Díez. The director of the armed institute, a figure very close and loyal to Pedro Sánchez, has the full support of the President of the Government and the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. Also since she was investigated by Judge Pedraz.
In addition to the precautionary measures concerning the Director of the Civil Guard and her second-in-command, the PP’s offensive has included a request to Judge Pedraz to expand the investigation into Leire Díez; the former president of the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI), Vicente Fernández; the former president of Correos and former chief of staff to Sánchez —all three already investigated in the case—; and two other Correos officials for the alleged creation of a “tailor-made position” in the public institution for Díez to occupy. “This criminal scheme is what the Badajoz [Provincial] Court condemned for Pedro Sánchez’s brother and, therefore, there are similarities and there may be criminal indications,” Ezcurra stated.
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