{"id":77196,"date":"2026-05-19T10:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/77196\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T10:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:01:09","slug":"spanish-court-charges-key-sanchez-ally-with-money-laundering-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/77196\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish court charges key S\u00e1nchez ally with money laundering \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the Public Prosecutor determined no evidence of a crime had been found, a Madrid judge ordered the case to be closed in 2023. But last December, Spanish police raided the airline\u2019s headquarters and arrested<\/a> its president, Julio Mart\u00ednez, for alleged money laundering.<\/p>\n

During a hearing in the Spanish Senate earlier this year, Zapatero acknowledged<\/a> that over the course of several years, he had been paid \u20ac463,000 for \u201cwritten and oral consulting services\u201d for An\u00e1lisis Relevante, a company owned by Mart\u00ednez, whom he described as a \u201cfriend.\u201d He also that he had never undertaken any work on behalf of Plus Ultra.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s leading opposition party, the center-right People\u2019s Party, seized on Zapatero\u2019s indictment to attack S\u00e1nchez. \u201cThe principle that links the last two Socialist prime ministers of Spain is corruption,\u201d the party said in a statement. \u201cBoth have denigrated the institution they represent or have represented.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Socialist Party\u2019s organizational secretary, Rebeca Torr\u00f3, came out in defense of Spain\u2019s former head of government and suggested his indictment was politically motivated. <\/p>\n

\u201cJos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero was Prime Minister for two terms marked by an ambitious program to expand rights, equality, and social protection,\u201d she wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cThe right and the far right have never forgiven him for these advances.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the Public Prosecutor determined no evidence of a crime had been found, a Madrid judge ordered the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[13028,43699,11031,3395,304,305,6174],"class_list":["post-77196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pedro-sanchez","tag-bailout","tag-jose-luis-rodriguez-zapatero","tag-money-laundering","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-spain","tag-spanish-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116600667155144900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}