Spain's top prosecutor denies leaking documents against opposition

MADRID (AFP) — Spain’s top prosecutor denied Monday leaking legal secrets against the conservative opposition, on the first day of his unprecedented trial.

The politically explosive case against Alvaro Garcia Ortiz, the first serving attorney general to face trial in Spanish history, is one of several legal affairs embarrassing Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority government.

Garcia Ortiz is accused of leaking case files about Alberto Gonzalez Amador, a businessman under investigation for alleged tax fraud who is the partner of the Madrid region’s influential right-wing leader, Isabel Diaz Ayuso.

Her conservative Popular Party has accused Garcia Ortiz — appointed by Sanchez’s Socialist government in 2022 — of organizing the leak to damage Ayuso, a darling of the Spanish right who has been tipped at times for a national leadership role.

Asked by the presiding judge if he considered himself guilty of the crimes he is accused of, Garcia Ortiz, 57, simply answered: “No.”

His lawyer, Consuelo Castro, described the case as “an unjust process overall” and said the investigation began with “a preconceived notion that the defendant was guilty.”

Four prosecutors will testify as witnesses in the first session of this trial, which will take place over six days — three this week and three next week.

‘Alternative narrative’

In 2024, media reported that Gonzalez Amador had proposed a plea deal with the public prosecutor’s office in which he would admit to apparent tax offenses in exchange for avoiding a trial and jail.

The Supreme Court began investigating Garcia Ortiz following a complaint by Gonzalez Amador, who is accused of defrauding 350,000 euros (around $400,000) from the treasury in 2020 and 2021 as his health company’s earnings soared during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gonzalez Amador is demanding four years in jail for Garcia Ortiz and 300,000 euros for “the moral damage caused.”

If convicted, Garcia Ortiz faces several years in prison and a ban on continuing in his profession. He has denied leaking any information about Gonzalez Amador, either personally or through his office.

Prosecutors have requested acquittal, and Sanchez has said he believes Garcia Ortiz is innocent.

Garcia Ortiz’s legal team has presented him as the victim of a campaign by the Madrid region’s government to distract attention from Gonzalez Amador’s legal woes and protect Ayuso.

Ayuso and her staff designed “a strategy that consisted in building and spreading an alternative narrative” which portrayed Gonzalez Amador’s troubles as “political persecution,” his lawyers wrote before the trial.

The government has repeatedly expressed its full confidence in Garcia Ortiz’s innocence and his continuity in his post.

‘Moral decay’

The trial in the Supreme Court will run until Nov. 13, with 12 journalists among the 41 witnesses set to take part.

Gonzalez Amador will testify on Tuesday, while Garcia Ortiz will take the stand on Nov. 12.

Separate corruption investigations targeting the prime minister’s wife, brother and two former Socialist heavyweights have threatened to topple Sanchez, who came to power in 2018 promising to clean up Spanish politics.

The Popular Party has repeatedly called for Sanchez’s resignation and a snap general election, accusing his minority government of widespread corruption.

The party’s national leader, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said Monday the Garcia Ortiz affair alone would be enough to bring down a government “in any decent democracy.”

“But for Sanchez, it’s just another step in the moral decay of our country,” he added.

Sanchez, in office since 2018, has dismissed the cases against his brother and wife as politically motivated.

He told a Senate committee last week that Socialist party funding was “absolutely clean,” and stressed his government was putting in place a raft of ant-corruption measures unveiled in July.

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By ALFONS LUNA Agence France-Presse