{"id":44610,"date":"2026-06-22T20:16:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T20:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/44610\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T20:16:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T20:16:31","slug":"spains-former-transport-minister-jailed-for-24-years-in-corruption-case-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/44610\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s former transport minister jailed for 24 years in corruption case"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Spanish transport minister was sentenced to 24 years in prison on corruption<\/a> charges on Monday, in the first verdict from a series of scandals blighting Pedro Sanchez<\/a>\u2019s ruling Socialist Party.<\/p>\n

Jose Luis Abalos, 66, was found guilty of criminal organisation, bribery, embezzlement and influence peddling by the country\u2019s supreme court for his role in a scheme linked to face mask contracts during Covid.<\/p>\n

The court unanimously found that Mr Abalos, his aide Koldo Garcia and businessman V\u00edctor de Aldama had formed a criminal organisation with clear roles to make financial gains through corrupt practices.<\/p>\n

Mr Garcia received a 19-year prison term, while Mr Aldama was sentenced to four-and-a-half years with a suspended sentence, in recognition of his cooperation in uncovering the scheme.<\/p>\n

\"Jose<\/p>\n

Jose Luis Abalos, pictured in October, was sentenced on Monday (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

His sentence was also conditional on him not reoffending, submitting biannual activity reports, and completing one year of community service.<\/p>\n

According to the ruling, contracts for some 13 million masks at the height of the pandemic were awarded to Spain’s state-owned entities Puertos del Estado and railway infrastructure operator Adif through the scheme via a company linked to Mr Aldama.<\/p>\n

The court found that Mr Abalos received benefits including a monthly payment of \u20ac10,000 for promoting business interests.<\/p>\n

This trial is one of several graft cases involving the entourage of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.<\/p>\n

Mr Sanchez, one of Europe’s few remaining leftist leaders, came to power eight years ago promising to clean up politics, having ousted a centre-right government plagued by a string of corruption scandals.<\/p>\n

\"Pedro<\/p>\n

Pedro Sanchez (R), and his wife Begona Gomez, in Beijing in April, amid scrutiny over her conduct (Reuters)<\/p>\n

While facing scrutiny even from allies, Mr Sanchez himself has not been named in any of the cases, and maintains they are part of a campaign to oust him.<\/p>\n

The prime minister\u2019s brother, David Sanchez, was previously indicted in an investigation into alleged influence peddling linked to his hiring by a regional government.<\/p>\n

And in April, his wife was charged with corruption in a long-running case that her allies branded a political smear.<\/p>\n

Her personal assistant and a businessman also faced charges in connection with the case. All three denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Spanish transport minister was sentenced to 24 years in prison on corruption charges on Monday, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2883,8379,20201,3567,8375,20202,20200,2114,205,8376,17],"class_list":["post-44610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-corruption","tag-criminal-organisation","tag-david-sanchez","tag-influence-peddling","tag-jose-luis-abalos","tag-mr-abalos","tag-mr-garcia","tag-mr-sanchez","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-socialist-party","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44610","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=44610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}