A WhatsApp group has ended up in a Civil Guard report these days. It was created on August 23, 2024. The name, VACACIONES Y VIAJES, had nothing to do with summer, even though it was in capital letters and initially suggested photos of beaches or cliffs. It was formed by four members. A former magistrate expelled from the judicial career in 2022, Luis Sáenz de Tejada; the businessman Javier Pérez Dolset; the former president of Badajoz Club de Fútbol, Joaquín Parra, and Leire Díez, the former socialist militant involved in a judicial case that bears her name.
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According to the agents, Díez intended to torpedo corruption cases affecting the PSOE. She met with businessmen and former magistrates affected by judicial cases. Among them, the case of the Prime Minister’s brother, which was being investigated in the Badajoz courts in 2024 under the instruction of Judge Beatriz Biedma. Biedma was the target behind the group VACACIONES Y VIAJES:
—My priority in all this: the president.
This is one of the messages written by Díez and part of the chat. To understand this part of the report by the Central Operative Unit (UCO), which investigates alleged serious crimes at a national level, one must go back to May 28, 2024, three months before the creation of the WhatsApp group. On that day, the pseudo-union Manos Limpias filed a complaint in Badajoz alleging a supposed job favoritism for President Sánchez’s brother in the provincial council in 2017. Justice then activated investigations to determine if there was preferential treatment and if the position was created exclusively for him. Sánchez was not yet Prime Minister at that time. He had just won the primaries for the general secretariat of the PSOE.
Now, in 2024, the VACACIONES Y VIAJES group had a very clear mission. Díez met with businessmen and those affected in other cases. Parra, a member of the chat and investigated in another judicial plot, that of hydrocarbons, declared to the Civil Guard last week that Díez offered him help in the investigations affecting him.
When asked why she wanted to help him, he said the former socialist militant replied: “When you suffer injustices firsthand, when your wife and brother are indicted, then you realize that things need to be cleaned up.”
The former militant Díez explained to the chat members that she had a strategy in mind. This is what she said on August 27, 2024. “We have been working on it for months […] much beyond media actions and so on. Truly, everything is perfectly coordinated, but to refine the strategy I need to see what evidence I have. That is fundamental. Because the actions, complaints, and so on will be based on that, without prejudice to everything we already have in hand and the information we receive from other sources. I tell you what my priority in all this has been: the president, because without that there is nothing else and because it is so obscenely unfair that it is right to do it.”
This message also referred to the existence of a meeting “on Monday.” Agents believe the day was September 2, 2024, six days after the message where she defended the Prime Minister. And how does one seek to torpedo a judicial case from a WhatsApp group? The group then planned to file a complaint against Judge Biedma, who was instructing Sánchez’s brother’s judicial case. Moreover, in one of Díez’s agendas, which also appear in the UCO report, it reads: “Badajoz. Four investigating judges. Step 1: Destroy procedure. It fell to the one at number 2, who has the least, but has some.”
The Civil Guard believes that the group’s intention was to find someone to appear in the case and become part of the judicial procedure. The objective was to “produce a paralysis” in the investigation. Why? Because “there would be a resolution” recognizing the enmity between Biedma and Sáenz de Tejada, the former magistrate who is part of the WhatsApp group. If there were links compromising the impartiality of the case, as the chat sought, the judge could be removed.
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Another option they considered was to file a complaint for disclosure of secrets or to assume the defense of Sánchez’s brother, but without specifying who the lawyer would be. But none of this happened.
Yes, the filing of a complaint against Judge Biedma and other judges. This is stated in another WhatsApp message written by former magistrate Sáenz de Tejada:
—Hello, the complaint is ready as we discussed.
Later he also sent an audio that began like this. “Good evening, Leire. Well, I’ll comment. I’ve sent it to you […] the whole organization is there, Beatriz Biedma is there, of course […] Tell me when I should go there to file it and… about the appearance and…. about the press conference.” This complaint was forwarded by Díez to the then Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, who replied:
—Don’t fail in the purchase, if you advance it, the credibility would be 100%.
The Civil Guard does not report what purchase Cerdán is referring to. The group, days later, falls silent. So much so, that former magistrate Sáenz de Tejada expresses his concern on September 26, 2024. “Good morning, given the absolute lack of communication, I understand that nothing will finally be done.” The former president of Badajoz CF and also businessman, Joaquín Parra, replied:
—I think the same. We are too stalled, and he who strikes first strikes twice.
The former socialist militant Díez replied immediately. She told them both that everything remained the same, that nothing was stopping. “We are doing things in a way that they are safe and there are no scares […] The Bad thing [agents believe it’s a diminutive of Badajoz] they are looking at today and I suppose they will tell me something in the afternoon.” According to the agents, Díez modified the complaint that former magistrate Sáenz de Tejada had sent. “I removed what they said, which produced excessive harshness.” On October 16, she gave her approval to file the complaint:
—Go ahead tomorrow.
—I will file it electronically or the solicitor will go. I save myself the trip.
In the end, she handled it on October 21 and personally. Days later, she would receive a response from the State Attorney General’s Office informing her that it had no jurisdiction to hear such a complaint. In response, Díez replied in the WhatsApp group: “I’ll pass it on and tell you.”
On November 27, 2024, Biedma indicted Sánchez’s brother. That same day, former magistrate Sáenz de Tejada sent a burofax to the State Attorney General, reiterating the complaint, without success. On February 19, 2025, Sáenz de Tejada requested to appear in the case as a popular accusation, a figure in Spanish criminal law that allows any citizen or entity to participate in a criminal process as an accuser, even if they are not the direct victim of the crime. And it was dismissed. There are no further details about the VACACIONES Y VIAJES group.
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