The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has once again attacked the Government over the corruption cases plaguing the environment of President Pedro Sánchez. “There is institutional corruption: conviction of the Attorney General. There is political corruption: conviction of Minister Ábalos. And there is corruption in the family environment: conviction of the brother of the President of the Government,” he enumerated during his review of the political year. Feijóo referred to the case of former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. “He spent years giving lessons on moralism and peace, and it turns out it was all a matter of business,” he said. “The most regrettable thing is that, without Sánchez’s Government, Zapatero would not have been able to commit crimes.” This Wednesday, the president of the PSOE, Cristina Narbona, appears before the Senate’s investigation committee on the Koldo case. She has been summoned by the PP to explain her relationship with Leire Díaz, a former socialist militant investigated for allegedly orchestrating a plot to boycott judicial cases that could affect the Government. In addition, the National Court resumes with the final defense reports, including that of former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, the trial of the Kitchen case, the alleged parapolice operation to steal documents from former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas.
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Narbona defends Zapatero’s presumption of innocence pending his explanations
Cristina Narbona has defended the presumption of innocence of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the Senate’s Koldo case investigation committee, in the eye of the storm of Spanish politics after being singled out by businessman Julio Martínez and Plus Ultra president, Julio Martínez Sola, for having played a key role in the 53 million euro rescue of the airline during the pandemic. “Zapatero has left an enormous legacy from his time in government, during which I had the honor of being a minister. He deserves enormous respect, and the presumption of innocence applies to everyone, and we must consider who we are talking about,” asserted the PSOE president, who reiterated that questions about the origin of the jewels Zapatero kept in the office provided by the party in Ferraz or his links with Julio Martínez must be answered by the former president. “I was completely unaware of that circumstance, and the president must provide the explanations,” she responded regarding the trousseau valued at 1.3 million euros. “There is no set time for that explanation, and he will give it when he deems it appropriate (…) We are awaiting those explanations,” she stated about the silence Zapatero has maintained since he declared as an accused before judge José Luis Calama of the National Court in mid-June.
The socialist president has rejected that the PSOE was illegally financed and has justified the federal leadership’s decision not to sue Díez, despite numerous regional leaders and members of the PSOE’s own leadership privately believing there are ample reasons to do so due to the damage to the party’s reputation. “For now, we understand that we do not yet know all the facts that may be subject to investigation; it is a decision we will make in due course based on the evolution of the case,” Narbona observed.
‘Kitchen Case’
Fernández Díaz alleges that they seek to convict him in Kitchen “by reason” of his position as minister
Jorge Fernández Díaz, Minister of the Interior from 2011 to 2016 and a trusted man of former president Mariano Rajoy, has already played his cards in the trial of the Kitchen case, which resumed this Wednesday at the National Court. Three months after the start of the hearing, his lawyer presented his final argument to the court and took the opportunity to distance him from the launch of the espionage operation against former popular treasurer Luis Bárcenas, whose alleged objective was to steal compromising documents he might have kept from party officials so that they would not reach the investigators of the Gürtel case. The defense has criticized that it is about assigning “criminal responsibility” to the former PP leader merely because he held the position of minister; and has attacked Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security and his former right-hand man, who implicated his former boss in the plot during the investigation phase.
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Feijóo: “Without Sánchez’s Government, Zapatero would not have been able to commit crimes”
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has once again attacked the Government over the corruption cases plaguing the environment of President Pedro Sánchez. “There is institutional corruption: conviction of the Attorney General. There is political corruption: conviction of Minister Ábalos. And there is corruption in the family environment: conviction of the brother of the President of the Government,” he enumerated.
Feijóo referred to the case of former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. “He spent years giving lessons on moralism and peace, and it turns out it was all a matter of business,” he said. “The most regrettable thing is that without Sánchez’s Government, Zapatero would not have been able to commit crimes.” “Zapatero would never have been able to exert influence without a government capable of turning his efforts into decisions,” he added.
Feijóo: “This government only has one reasonable and democratic way out: call elections”
The leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has reviewed the political year from his party’s national headquarters in Madrid and has once again called for Pedro Sánchez’s Government to call general elections. “This government only has one reasonable and democratic way out: call elections,” he insisted.
Feijóo believes that Sánchez wants to “govern at any cost” and that this political year has been “more than a difficult year”: “It has been the confirmation that this stage is over for three reasons. The government is politically exhausted, parliamentarily blocked, and completely ethically disqualified.”
The leader of the Popular Party said that the central Executive has lost “social support” and cited the electoral results in Extremadura, Aragon, Castilla y León, and Andalusia as examples. He also assured that the Government has lost its parliamentary capacity. “It began the legislature held back by several minorities, and now not even that; now it is held back by the interests of a single person, Mr. Sánchez,” he assessed.
He also criticized the “loss of all moral authority to enforce the law.” “It has no moral authority to collect and manage public money because it has stolen. And it has no moral authority to lead a common project, because its legacy is the wall between Spaniards,” he said.
Feijóo: “The Government is politically exhausted, parliamentarily blocked, and ethically disqualified”
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, appears to review the political year and the progress of the legislature. “Three years ago, Pedro Sánchez chose to govern at any cost, and Spain has been paying for it for three years,” he began his speech. “We could talk for hours about scandals, convictions, kickbacks, incompetence, prison, broken promises. That is what has marked most of the days of this legislature,” he said.
However, Feijóo believes that this stage is “over.” “The Government is politically exhausted, parliamentarily blocked, and completely ethically disqualified. It has lost social support; its distance from the street is enormous,” he argued.
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Cristina Narbona on Leire Díez: “I have not been her godmother at all”
Cristina Narbona is appearing before the investigation committee of the so-called Koldo case, where she has denied having intervened in the hiring of Leire Díez in the public companies Enusa and Correos. “I am kind and I try as much as possible with militants, with anyone, with politicians from other parties… I have not been her godmother at all,” she emphasized when asked if she promoted the former socialist militant.
The president of the PSOE explained that she met Díez in Cantabria in 2017, when the former affiliate was the regional communication manager for the party. “I have had conversations with her over these years of a professional nature, as press officer for the PSOE in Cantabria, then as press officer for the national uranium company. It was not a friendship,” Narbona observed.
Last week, this Wednesday, the socialist leader denied before judge Santiago Pedraz that she knew Leire Díez “could be organizing a plot within the party.” The socialist leader testified as a witness at the National Court, which is investigating the former militant’s alleged maneuvers to “destabilize” judicial processes open against the party and the Government.
Regarding the messages Díez wrote to her to “redirect” during Pedro Sánchez’s days of reflection in 2024, in response to what she considered attacks on the president to turn the situation “upside down,” Narbona explained why she replied that she had already told Santos Cerdán.
“I knew because a few days before that WhatsApp message, Leire had told me that she had information, without going into any detail, relevant. I directed her to the organization secretary, who was the person responsible for communication policy, among other tasks. Therefore, I had already directed her to Santos Cerdán, whom I asked if [Díez] had brought any information of interest, and he told me no. With that precedent, I told her that I had already told Santos Cerdán. When she spoke of information, I thought she was referring to facts that certainly have nothing to do with the investigation,” she declared.
‘Podcast’ | The friend who now points to Zapatero
“I did not speak with absolutely anyone from the public sector about the Plus Ultra rescue, and no one will be able to say otherwise.” This was stated by former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero when giving testimony at the National Court. However, his former friend and closest collaborator, Julio Martínez, has taken a turn in the investigation into the airline’s rescue. Martínez, who testified this Tuesday, assures that he wants to collaborate with Justice and maintains that it was Zapatero who set the strategy. Before continuing, it is worth remembering that the Plus Ultra rescue was financed with public money during the pandemic. The operation generated great controversy due to the small size of the airline and its business ties with Venezuela. At that time, it was questioned whether the company had sufficient relevance for Spain to justify the aid. The rescue was investigated to determine its legality, and the case was archived in 2023. This new turn in the case comes a month after the Supreme Court granted freedom to businessman Víctor de Aldama, considered the fixer of the mask plot. In that case, former minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor Koldo García have been convicted and must go to prison. Aldama, on the other hand, avoided that situation after collaborating with Justice, as the court considered his testimony key to incriminating the rest of those involved. Upon learning of the sentence, he told the media: “I hope the others who come after will collaborate.”
‘plus ultra case’
The new dimension of the ‘Zapatero case’ does not move the Government while the former president maintains his silence
The Zapatero case has entered a new dimension. And it’s getting worse for himself, for the PSOE, and for the Government. His hitherto friend Julio Martínez Martínez, whom the judge has presented as a “go-between” for the former president, has taken the step that had been feared for weeks within the socialist ranks: he has denied Zapatero’s solemn statements when he asserted “with absolute rotundity” that he had had no involvement whatsoever in the Plus Ultra rescue. To further darken the picture, the legal strategy of Rodríguez Zapatero’s defense has been severely affected; it sought to annul the key evidence until now, the messages extracted three years ago from the previous airline president’s mobile phone, apparently without judicial authorization, by US customs services. Judge José Luis Calama has had another testimony since Monday, that of the current president of Plus Ultra, Julio Martínez Sola, who corroborates the content of the messages. And despite all this, the Government maintains its confidence in Zapatero, even at the cost of tying its fate to his.
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‘PLUS ULTRA CASE’
Two Plus Ultra executives ratify the veracity of incriminating messages that Zapatero tries to annul
The president of Plus Ultra, Julio Martínez Sola, and the CEO and former financial director of the airline, Roberto Rosilli, both indicted by judge José Luis Calama in the case investigating alleged irregularities in the 2021 granting of 53 million euros in public aid to the company, have used the writings presented on Monday to show their willingness to collaborate with justice to “ratify” the veracity of one of the key pieces of the case: the messages they exchanged with another of those investigated, the Venezuelan businessman Rodolfo Reyes Rojas, a shareholder of the company and against whom the magistrate has issued an arrest warrant, and which were found on the latter’s mobile phone.
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‘Plus Ultra Case’
The case against Zapatero now focuses on Plus Ultra’s leadership after contradicting the former president’s version
Julio Martínez Martínez entered the National Court around 8:45 AM this Tuesday and left more than four hours later, largely sticking to the line set the day before in the document sent to Judge José Luis Calama to implicate former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the Plus Ultra rescue. The businessman’s shift, who had for years built a working and friendly relationship with the former socialist leader, now opens a new scenario in the summary and places the focus on the airline’s president, Julio Martínez Sola, and its financial director, Roberto Roselli, who joined the strategy of “collaborating” with the investigation. Like the owner of Análisis Relevante, both sent separate documents to the magistrate to attribute to Zapatero efforts to obtain public aid. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office considers it necessary for both to testify after taking that step, according to sources from the public ministry.
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Good morning. We begin the live coverage of the latest political news, this Wednesday, July 21. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, reviews the political year and the progress of the legislature in a press conference, with an eye on the judicial cases affecting the PSOE and the Government and the Executive’s lack of parliamentary support.
The president of the PSOE, Cristina Narbona, appears before the Senate’s investigation committee on the Koldo case. She has been summoned by the PP to explain her relationship with Leire Díaz, a former socialist militant investigated for allegedly orchestrating a plot to boycott judicial cases that could affect the Government.
In addition, the National Court resumes with the final defense reports, including that of former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, the trial of the Kitchen case, the alleged parapolice operation to steal documents from former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas.
