Madrid, Jul 22 (EFE).- The president of the Spanish government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, has been summoned to testify on July 30 as a witness in a judicial investigation affecting his wife, Begoña Gómez, regarding alleged influence peddling and possible business corruption.
The questioning will take place at the Moncloa Palace, the seat of the Presidency of the Government, where the judge in charge of the case, Juan Carlos Peinado, will travel, according to the summons order, known on Monday.
The judge has thus accepted the request of the popular accusations, led by the far-right party Vox, which requested the statement of the head of the Executive as a witness.
Peinado argues that the jurisprudence contemplates the modality of the “crime of chain influence peddling” and considers it “convenient, useful and pertinent” to collect the version of the President of the Government to investigate “the possible relationship of the person under investigation with an authority.”
According to a statement issued by the High Court of Justice in Madrid today, Peinado decided to summon Sánchez in a ruling issued last Friday, the same day that his wife appeared before the same judge as a suspect, but refused to testify.
Although Sánchez is required to appear, Spanish law exempts anyone from testifying against their spouse and other close relatives in a judicial proceeding.
The judge may take his statement “on matters of which he has not been aware by reason of his position” at his “official home or office”, in accordance with Spanish procedural law. And it will be recorded, Peinado stipulates in the ruling.
Conservatives call for Sánchez’s resignation
After the summons was announced, sources from the Socialist Party, which Sánchez leads, said that the judge’s latest decisions are “absolutely unjustified” and “reveal the political nature of this case,” a “political persecution orchestrated by the right and the far right” to prevent Sánchez from remaining in government.
Defense Minister Margarita Robles said she hopes the judge is not making decisions based on “public projection.”
On the other hand, the leader of the opposition, the conservative Alberto Núñez Feijóo, urged Sánchez to resign. “A citizen who is accused has the right not to give explanations, but a government does not; a government must always give explanations to citizens,” he argued.
A businessman and a university rector are under investigation
Last Friday, Begoña Gómez invoked her right not to testify because she did not see sufficient guarantees in the judicial procedure, as explained by her lawyer, Antonio Camacho.
“This procedure has run out of content. We are unable to understand what guides the investigating court in this expansive investigation, which is becoming more and more extensive and where guarantees, unfortunately, are not as protected as they should be in a State of Law,” the lawyer stressed.
This refusal to testify led the popular accusations to request that the head of the Executive be called as a witness to find out what happened in meetings at the Moncloa between Begoña Gómez and businessmen such as Juan Carlos Barrabés, who is also under investigation.
Barrabés, who was initially called as a witness, had told the judge that Sánchez was present at a couple of those meetings with Gómez, according to sources in the prosecution.
In another ruling, the judge decided on Monday to investigate the rector of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Joaquín Goyache, and summoned him to testify on July 29, after previously appearing only as a witness.
The judge has been investigating Gómez since last April in a case opened following a complaint from the self-proclaimed “union” Manos Limpias, which the Prosecutor’s Office requested to be shelved, and which asked for clarification of whether she used her status as the wife of the President of the Government to favour the awarding of contracts to the businessman Barrabés, a professor of the master’s degree in the department she directed at the UCM.
Following the complaint by Manos Limpias, other organisations linked to the far right decided to join the procedure.
After referring some of the contracts under investigation to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the judge is analysing other awards, although two reports from the judicial police agree that they were processed “normally and under the principles that govern public procurement.”
The accusations also focus on Gómez’s work at the UCM, which has sent an internal investigation to the judge that ends without a “conclusion” regarding a possible “misappropriation” of the software of the chair co-directed by Sánchez’s wife.
The case has sparked a heated political debate between the left, with the Socialists in power, and conservatives and the far right, as well as generating significant media coverage.
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2024-07-24 07:57:25
