Blow to Spanish PM as attorney general found guilty in leak case
Blow to Spanish PM as attorney general found guilty in leak case
Blow to Spanish PM as attorney general found guilty in leak case
Spain’s top prosecutor has been banned from his post for two years after being found guilty of leaking confidential information about a tax case involving a businessman who is the boyfriend of a prominent rightwing politician.
Álvaro García Ortiz, who has served as attorney general since 2022, was also fined €7,300 (£6,428), and ordered to pay €10,000 in damages to the businessman, Alberto González Amador.
The verdict, announced by the supreme court on Thursday, will come as a blow to Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who had insisted on García Ortiz’s innocence, and who is under increasing pressure because of a series of corruption allegations facing his family and his allies.
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The case has reignited the debate over the politicisation of the judiciary and comes as investigations continue into allegations of corruption involving Sánchez’s wife and his brother. While the prime minister has dismissed those allegations as politically motivated smears, in June he ordered his right-hand man, Santos Cerdán, to resign as the socialist party’s organisational secretary after a supreme court judge found “firm evidence” of his possible involvement in taking kickbacks on public construction contracts.
The corruption investigations, which also involve the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos and one of his aides, are particularly damaging as Sánchez came to power promising to crack down on graft. The prime minister has previously cast doubt on the independence of some members of the Spanish judiciary, claiming in an interview in September “there’s no doubt that there are judges doing politics and there are politicians trying to do justice”.
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