The head of the Court of Instruction number 3 of Badajoz, Beatriz Biedma Rojano, issued an order this Wednesday citing David Sánchez, brother of President Pedro Sánchez, and eight other people as being investigated for alleged irregularities in the hiring of that by the Badajoz Provincial Council. The judge’s decision comes one day after the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has delivered a report whose content the judge concludes that there are “rational indications of criminality related to crimes against the public administration” in the awarding to the president’s brother, in 2017, of a position as coordinator of activities of the music conservatories of this entity. The police document specifically analyzed the emails sent and received in their corporate accounts between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2022 by nine people, including David Sánchez and the president of the provincial council, the socialist Miguel Ángel Gallardo, who has also now been cited as being investigated.
The investigation was launched after a complaint from Clean Hands that focused on Sánchez’s brother, who has been working since July 2017—almost a year before the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to the presidency of the Government, but when there had already been recovered the general secretary of the PSOE after defeating Susana Díaz in the party primaries – in the orchestra of the Badajoz Conservatory of Music, and coordinates that activity in this body. The pseudo-union based its complaint on information published in the press in which it was stated that David Sánchez did not perform the duties assigned to him, did not go to his workplace and resided in Portugal, presumably to avoid paying taxes in Spain. He also stated that the president’s brother had assets valued at two million euros, which he described as disproportionate to the salary he received and his previous work life.
Following the complaint, the judge opened investigation proceedings on May 30 and asked the Badajoz Provincial Council for “all the documentation related to the employment contract” of David Sánchez. He also requested a report on the selection process to award him the position and “his essential functions and effective performance thereof, hours, salary and the existence of authorization for the provision of his services under a teleworking regime.” The organization sent this documentation to the court on June 14, but the judge considered it insufficient.
For this reason, four days later he requested new reports from the Badajoz Provincial Council so that, among other issues, it could report on the “physical location of the office where [el hermano del presidente] carry out their duties regularly”, if there was a time control system for senior management personnel or why the nomenclature of the position was changed in 2021 to “Head of the Performing Arts Office”. He also demanded to know if the funds from the Young Opera Program, which David Sánchez was supposedly in charge of, were of “autonomous, state or European” origin, as stated in a document. In that same judicial resolution, the judge commissioned the Tax Agency and the UCO to intervene in the investigation.
The judge’s request that this unit of the Civil Guard – the same one that does so in the case of Begoña Gómez – be in charge of the investigations was justified by a report that she prepared within the summary of the so-called Koldo caseopened in the National Court to investigate alleged corruption in the purchase of masks by the Ministry of Transport and other public bodies.
The magistrate ordered the search of. Then, Civil Guard agents went to their headquarters and uploaded the emails sent and received into their corporate accounts between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2022 by nine people, including the president of the county council, the socialist Miguel Ángel Gallardo; two other deputies from this party and Sánchez’s brother. However, when they proceeded to analyze the material, the investigators discovered that “computer errors” had occurred that had caused the material intercepted in David Sánchez’s account to contain “temporary spaces covered by judicial authorization that do not show content” by which they asked the magistrate for permission to do their dumping again. The judge authorized it on two more occasions. The first, days after the first registration. The second, at the end of September.
The order ordering this procedure was appealed by the president’s brother and other people whose emails were intercepted, considering that a prospective investigation was being carried out against them (consisting of investigating to see if any evidence is found). of crime, instead of focusing the investigations on specific facts), something prohibited by law, and that thereby violated their rights. However, the magistrate, first, and later the Provincial Court of Badajoz each rejected the appeals on three occasions and endorsed the investigations. The groups Iustitia Europa, Hazte Oír, Liberum and Vox are appearing in the case as accusations, in addition to Clean Hands.
