Overview
- The Supreme Court issued a first-degree sentence on June 22 that convicts José Luis Ábalos of corruption, association to commit crimes, embezzlement and influence peddling and orders 24 years and three months of prison.
- The ruling also convicts Ábalos’s former adviser Koldo García to about 19 years and eight months and sentences businessman Víctor de Aldama to four years and six months with execution suspended because he cooperated with investigators.
- Judges based the verdict on documentary reconstructions and digital evidence, notably an Excel file called “mascarillas” that the court describes as the operation’s ledger, plus accounting traces and Aldama’s testimony.
- After the sentence the judiciary applied precautionary measures to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, including passport surrender and a travel ban, and the judicial council opened a disciplinary inquiry into investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado.
- Pedro Sánchez has denied personal knowledge of wrongdoing and refused to resign while opposition parties and some former allies press for political consequences and other corruption probes continue to threaten the PSOE ahead of 2027 elections.