Judge Juan Carlos Peinado has summoned the wife of the Prime Minister, Begoña Gómez, to appear at a “preliminary hearing” on June 9 at 11:00, at the court. He has also summoned the other two defendants, Moncloa advisor Cristina Álvarez and businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés. “All three must appear in person,” the judge emphasized, then warned them that if they do not attend the summons, they will be “brought by law enforcement.” This is stated in an order issued on Monday, which EL PAÍS has accessed, in which he also warns that at this hearing “some precautionary personal measure could be adopted to avoid or minimize the risk” of flight given the “length” of the prison sentences they face.
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The judge took this step after receiving the latest report from the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, as well as the written conclusions submitted by the defenses and the Prosecutor’s Office — which request acquittal — and by the popular accusations led by Hazte Oír — which demand 24 years in prison for Gómez —. He informs the accused that, after taking testimony from a witness on May 14 by order of the Madrid Provincial Court, there are no longer any investigative proceedings pending.
Thus, the judge approaches the end of the controversial case he has led for two years and after which, last April, he proposed that Pedro Sánchez’s wife be tried by a popular jury for four crimes. This procedure began in April 2024 following a complaint from Manos Limpias, to which Hazte Oír and Vox later joined. Peinado began investigating Gómez’s professional activity with businessmen and her employment relationship with the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), as well as the development of software for that study center through an extraordinary chair. In these facts, the judge focuses on the crimes of influence peddling, corruption in business, and embezzlement. Later, however, he expanded the case to try to determine whether there was a diversion of public money by hiring Álvarez as an advisor to Sánchez’s partner so that she ended up collaborating in her private activity, instead of with her institutional work. This thesis supports the alleged embezzlement.
Now, Peinado explains that the time has come to hold a “preliminary hearing” with all parties involved in the case to address the appropriateness of opening the oral trial. He warns that — due to the crimes attributed to the defendants and the “length of the sentence that could be imposed on them,” which could drive them to “evade the action of justice” — it is appropriate to summon the accused to appear “personally” before the court “with the warning of being brought by law enforcement” if they do not attend. At this point, the judge also warns that at the June 9 hearing “some precautionary personal measure could be adopted to avoid or minimize the aforementioned risk, of trying to evade the action of justice by the accused.”
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Within the framework of the resolution, the judge takes the opportunity to respond to several of the requests made by the defenses in their respective written conclusions. He rejects summoning to testify as a witness at the preliminary hearing the former director of the UCM chair co-directed by Gómez, José Manuel Ruano, as requested by the lawyer of the Prime Minister’s wife. And, regarding Barrabés’s requests, he dismisses summoning 23 witnesses. But he warns that this “does not prevent” him from requesting them from the jury president.
The judge also dismisses the popular accusations’ request to reproduce at the preliminary hearing the statement Barrabés gave during the investigation phase in 2024. Peinado argues that, “although it is true that at the time the businessman’s health condition” did not allow him to attend the court, there is no “updated medical report to date or close in time” on the evolution of the businessman’s health condition that “prevents” him from attending the hearing.
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