Spain’s public prosecutors’ office said Thursday that the country’s attorney general committed “no wrongdoing” on the last day of his trial for allegedly leaking confidential legal information against the conservative opposition.
Alvaro Garcia Ortiz is the first serving attorney general in Spanish history to face trial, part of a series of legal controversies dogging Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority coalition.
Garcia Ortiz is accused of leaking case files about Alberto Gonzalez Amador, a businessman under investigation for alleged tax fraud, and is the partner of the Madrid region’s influential right-wing leader, Isabel Diaz Ayuso.
Her conservative Popular Party (PP) has accused Garcia Ortiz, appointed by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist government in 2022, of organising the leak to damage Ayuso, a darling of the Spanish right who has at times been tipped for a national leadership role.
In closing arguments before the Supreme Court in Madrid, prosecutor Maria Angeles Sanchez Conde requested Garcia Ortiz’s acquittal, saying he had “committed no wrongdoing” against Gonzalez Amador.
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The Supreme Court began investigating Garcia Ortiz following a complaint by Gonzalez Amador, who is accused of defrauding 350,000 euros (around $400,000) from the treasury in 2020 and 2021 as his health company’s earnings soared during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2024, the media reported that Gonzalez Amador had proposed a plea deal with the public prosecutor’s office in which he would admit to alleged tax offences in exchange for avoiding a trial and jail.
Gonzalez Amador told the trial he wanted to reach an agreement with the prosecutor’s office “quickly and quietly” to avoid harming Ayuso.
He is demanding four years in jail for Garcia Ortiz and 300,000 euros for “the moral damage caused”.
Gonzalez Amador’s lawyer earlier on Thursday accused the leftist national government of turning his client into a “political pawn” and “destroying the presumption of innocence”.
Gonzalez Amador is still facing trial for the alleged tax fraud.
Garcia Ortiz’s legal team has presented him as the victim of a campaign by the Madrid region’s government to distract attention from Gonzalez Amador’s legal woes and protect Ayuso.
If convicted, Spain’s top prosecutor faces up to six years in prison and a ban on practising law.
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The court is expected to deliver its verdict before the end of the year.
Separate corruption investigations targeting the prime minister’s wife, brother, and two former Socialist heavyweights have threatened to topple Sanchez, who came to power in 2018 promising to clean up Spanish politics.
The PP has repeatedly called for Sanchez’s resignation and a snap general election, accusing his minority government of widespread corruption.
Sanchez has said the graft allegations against his wife and brother are part of a “smear campaign” set in motion by the right.
AFP
