Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, head of the Economic Research and Anti-Corruption Department of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, has attributed to the former leader of the PSOE of Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, the political initiative to create the senior management position of the Diputación de Badajoz that was later awarded to David Sánchez, brother of the Prime Minister. This is how the armed forces officer spoke during the fourth session of the trial held this Wednesday at the Provincial Court of Badajoz for the alleged irregularities in the awarding of the coordinator position of the two provincial conservatories in 2017. “The only one we have seen intimately related to this position is the former president of the Diputación, Miguel Ángel Gallardo,” he stated.
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During his testimony, Balas emphasized the detail that the “need” to create that position did not originate in the Culture area, to which it was to be organically dependent. The UCO already pointed out in a report — delivered in November 2024 to Judge Beatriz Biedma, the case instructor — that said department did not submit any proposal for it. “Since it did not come from the interested area, which was Culture, we understand that it must be at a higher level with political capacity,” said the lieutenant colonel. The PSOE leader in Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, assumed in an interview on Onda Cero in February 2025 the “maximum responsibility” for the creation — although he did not claim the initiative as the Civil Guard now attributes to him — of the position that would finally be occupied by Sánchez’s brother. “The position was created by the provincial government in a meeting in Valdivia. I personally assume the maximum responsibility,” he expressed.
In his initial statement, the head of the UCO anti-corruption department made a detailed analysis of the intercepted messages exchanged by various officials of the Diputación de Badajoz, both in the days prior to the creation of the position and in the days before the call to fill it, which led him to his conclusions. Balas emphasized the response that Gallardo gave on May 3 to a message from the Culture manager in which she informed him of the necessary deadlines to urgently select the person who would fill the position and in which the then president of the Diputación told her it seemed “great.” “There is someone at a level who can influence and make Human Resources make that position effective. It is evident that it is not Culture, but a higher level,” Balas stressed before concluding that all this “concentrates on the figure of the former president Miguel [Ángel] Gallardo.”
Along the same lines, he pointed out several “issues” that “catch his attention”: the creation of the position with “that urgency,” the “non-alignment” with the Culture area, and that it took “so long” to staff it and yet the awarding of the position was then made effective in a very short time. In this regard, he detailed that it took less than a month to complete the entire process to award it to David Sánchez, while when the president’s brother resigned in February 2025 after the case broke out, his replacement lasted more than four months. “It strongly catches our attention,” he added. The lawyer for Manos Limpias then asked the police officer if he believed that the coordinator position of the conservatories had been created “for a specific person.” “What we deduce from all the actions and everything we see is that it is so,” was the agent’s response.
The lieutenant colonel also highlighted the email that on May 19, 2017, Evaristo Valentí, director of one of the province’s conservatories, sent to the head of the other Badajoz center, Yolanda Sánchez, with the contest rules published that day, in which the former put “hermanísimo” in the subject. On Monday, when both testified at the trial, its author reduced the comment to a “rumor” that he could not specify to whom, where, and when he had heard it nor whether it referred to the awarding of the position or simply that David Sánchez was running. For the UCO, however, “it is quite relevant because of who they are [the directors of the centers that the person occupying the position was supposedly going to coordinate], for having questioned the position and having been belligerent,” Balas stressed.
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