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For José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, today marks a watershed moment. The former prime minister is appearing before Judge Calama as a formal suspect, becoming the first head of a Spanish government to stand accused in a corruption case since the transition to democracy.
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The hearing, which begins today at 09:00 and will continue into tomorrow, seeks to clarify two issues at once. On the one hand, the public bailout of 53 million euros granted to the airline ‘Plus Ultra’. On the other, the discovery of luxury jewellery during a search of his office in Ferraz, which has prompted the judge to open a separate case because of their value. The pieces have been provisionally valued at 1.3 million euros, and their origin, the investigation notes, has not been justified.
The court order underpinning the case also refers to the company owned by the former prime minister’s daughters, What The Fav, which received up to 2 million euros for “consultancy” and layout work that may have been used to disguise the payment of alleged kickbacks. The investigating magistrate, who describes Zapatero as the head of an “organised network”, will today hear the former leader’s explanations behind closed doors.
A ‘horribilis’ week for the Government
Zapatero is not just a former prime minister in the dock; for years he has been one of the Socialist Party’s most valuable assets. His presence at rallies, campaign closings and his good rapport with Pedro Sánchez since the latter arrived in La Moncloa in 2018 mean that this affair has become one of the hardest blows for the PSOE and the Government itself.
Although the former prime minister’s defence team, led by Víctor Moreno Catena, has already tried to limit the scope of questioning by requesting that the jewellery be excluded from the first session, the judge rejected the move, arguing that there is no “real impairment of his right to a defence”.
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