Spain\u2019s former transport minister Jos\u00e9 Luis \u00c1balos, a long-time ally of Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez, was sentenced on Monday to 24 years and three months in prison on corruption charges linked to the procurement of face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court also sentenced \u00c1balos\u2019 former adviser, Koldo Garc\u00eda, to 19 years, eight months and one day in prison, the court said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u00c1balos and Garc\u00eda denied all wrongdoing throughout the trial. However, the court found that they had joined forces with businessman Jos\u00e9 Aldama to form a criminal organization that illegally enriched itself through pandemic procurement contracts.<\/p>\n
Aldama, who confessed and cooperated with investigators, received a suspended sentence of four years and six months.<\/p>\n
In its ruling, the Supreme Court stressed the broader consequences of the case, stating that corruption causes a \u201cserious loss of public trust in the political system\u201d and undermines the state’s democratic foundations.<\/p>\n
A series of corruption investigations has shaken the left-wing minority government in Madrid.<\/p>\n
Separate inquiries have been under way involving S\u00e1nchez\u2019s wife, Bego\u00f1a G\u00f3mez, his brother, David S\u00e1nchez, and the former organizational secretary of the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), Santos Cerd\u00e1n.<\/p>\n
More recently, investigators also opened proceedings involving former Socialist prime minister Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero (2004\u20132011), who is regarded as a close political ally of S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n
In the case involving the prime minister\u2019s wife, the presiding judge ruled last week that G\u00f3mez will face trial. Pending further proceedings, she has been barred from leaving the country, ordered to surrender her passport, and required to report regularly to judicial authorities.<\/p>\n
The government has described several of the investigations as politically motivated attacks, while opposition leader Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o has accused the administration of \u201csystemic corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez himself has not been named as a suspect or placed under judicial investigation. He continues to reject opposition demands for his resignation and a snap election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s former transport minister Jos\u00e9 Luis \u00c1balos, a long-time ally of Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez, was sentenced on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2883,20201,10565,205,8376,17,16672],"class_list":["post-44498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-corruption","tag-david-sanchez","tag-health-research","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-socialist-party","tag-spain","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}