The Spanish public prosecutor’s office requested on Thursday April 25 the dismissal of the judicial investigation for corruption targeting the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, opened after a complaint from an association which admitted to having based itself solely on press articles.
The announcement of this investigation led Pedro Sánchez to announce Wednesday evening, to everyone’s surprise, that he was considering resigning. The socialist leader, who has suspended his public activities, will make his decision known on Monday.
“The public prosecutor requests the annulment” of the procedure opened on April 16 by a Madrid court and “the dismissal of the case,” the public prosecutor told AFP.
Public aid during the Covid-19 pandemic
According to the online media El Confidencial, which revealed the existence of this investigation, justice is particularly interested in the links of Begoña Gómez, wife of Pedro Sánchez, with the Spanish tourist group Globalia.
The CEO of this company, owner of the airline Air Europa, would have met Begoña Gómez while his group was negotiating with the government the granting of public aid in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time, Begoña Gómez headed IE Africa Center, a foundation linked to the Madrid business school IE University which had, according to El Confidencial, signed a sponsorship agreement with Globalia in 2020.
“Strategy of harassment and demolition”
Pedro Sánchez described these accusations as a “strategy of harassment and demolition” carried out by “media strongly influenced by the right and the extreme right” and supported, according to him, by the conservative opposition.
The complaint at the origin of the investigation was filed by Manos Limpias, a collective considered close to the far right, which admitted in a press release Wednesday evening that it was based exclusively on “press information”, including “ veracity” must be determined by justice.
