cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11766414

A report by Spain’s law enforcement agency’s Guardia Civil sets out testimony on surveillance, threats and contacts with a drug clan.

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Beatriz Biedma - who has been called to give evidence at the National Court in Madrid on October 8 - appears as an injured party in the case against Leire Díez, a former official of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) known in Spain as the party’s plumber. Investigating judge Santiago Pedraz has limited her standing to a possible offence of slander.

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Biedma led the investigation that ended in the conviction of David Sánchez in July, when the Badajoz provincial court found the Prime Minister’s brother guilty of administrative malfeasance over a post created for him at the provincial council.

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Her appearance now has followed a Guardia Civil report delivered to the court on October 6. The 32-page document gathers testimony on contacts between the Díez network and the Los Rochos drug clan in Badajoz, southwest Spain, along with accounts of the surveillance of the judge.

The clan’s leader, Cintia Rocho, told investigators that former judge Luis Sáenz de Tejada had spoken of the need to get rid of Biedma. She said he had also used a Spanish saying about beating sense into a donkey.

A businessman who dealt with Sáenz de Tejada said he had learned through a third party that the judge had been followed. Those behind the surveillance were people the former magistrate had acted for as a lawyer, he said.

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Pedraz is examining whether party funds paid for a network set up to obstruct cases affecting the PSOE and the government. Former organisation secretary Santos Cerdán is among those under investigation, and the judge is weighing whether the Socialist party itself can be charged as a legal person.

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