Overview
- Spain’s Supreme Court has set a Thursday hearing on José Luis Ábalos’s appeal against the provisional imprisonment ordered on November 27.
- The instructing judge accepted attorney Carlos Bautista’s withdrawal but ordered him to attend the custody-review hearing unless it is waived, and sources say he plans to appear.
- Ábalos has five days to designate new counsel and a court agent, failing which the court will appoint legal-aid representation.
- Anticorruption prosecutors are seeking a 24-year sentence in the main ‘caso Koldo’ piece, and Bautista’s filed brief requested testimony from Francina Armengol, Ángel Víctor Torres and Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
- In a parallel development, the State Attorney will ask the Supreme Court to annul the conviction of former attorney general Álvaro García Ortiz, who is joining the Supreme Prosecutor’s Social Section as he prepares further challenges.