MADRID (AFP) – Spain’s top prosecutor arrived at the Supreme Court yesterday and testified as a suspect in a legal leaks case, one of several affairs embarrassing Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority leftist government.
Alvaro Garcia Ortiz is suspected of leaking secret legal documents about the partner of the Madrid region’s influential conservative leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso and his court appearance is unprecedented in Spanish legal history.
Ortiz quickly entered the Madrid court without responding to journalists gathered outside.
Spanish media published in March last year a draft agreement between the public prosecutor’s office and the lawyer of businessman Alberto Gonzalez Amador, who is under investigation for alleged tax fraud.
Amador offered a deal to prosecutors in which he would admit the alleged offences in exchange for avoiding a trial, media reported based on the leak.
The Supreme Court began investigating Ortiz in October after a complaint by Amador, who saw the earnings of his health company soar during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
The court ruled this month that preliminary findings provided a “base of evidence” to suspect Ortiz’s involvement in the revelations.
Ortiz, nominated by Sanchez’s government in 2022, has denied leaking information about Amador either directly or via his office.
The affair became politicised with Ayuso’s conservative opposition Popular Party demanding Ortiz’s resignation.
Ayuso, a darling of the Spanish right who frequently lambasts Sanchez, has denounced a “savage” campaign by the “powers of the state” and says allies of the premier organised the leak.
“This worries me greatly because this generates significant institutional damage,” political scientist Pablo Simon told public broadcaster RTVE on Monday.
“The message being passed on to all citizens is a politicised law, a partial law. We only accept the law when it benefits us, we’re against when it doesn’t,” added a professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University Simon.
Corruption investigations are also targeting Sanchez’s wife Begona Gomez and his brother David Sanchez, providing the opposition with more ammunition to attack the fragile coalition government which struggles to pass legislation.
