The Prosecutor’s Office attributes to Leire Díez, the “leadership” of an alleged “criminal plan” to “discredit” the leadership of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, with the aim of “annulling” and “wasting” investigations that “affect politicians and businessmen.” The public ministry makes this statement in one of the documents included in the summary opened by the Court of Instruction 9 of Madrid, headed by Judge Arturo Zamarriego, who plans to interrogate Díez on November 11 after the recording of a meeting was revealed where he offered alleged favors from the Prosecutor’s Office in exchange for compromising data.
These first conclusions of the Prosecutor’s Office inflict a setback on Díez, who has tried to disassociate himself from any irregularity since. “I am a journalist, not a plumber,” in reference to the nickname “PSOE plumber” that has been given to her. The former socialist militant has reiterated that she was dedicated to collecting “information about State organizations at a certain time” (the so-called State sewers) and that, according to her, she did so motu proprionever in the name of the Government or Ferraz.
However, the preliminary account of the public ministry is light years away from the defense thesis. In one of the writings included in the summary, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the Prosecutor’s Office highlights that Leire Díez “initiated a continuous and coordinated activity” with other people – such as journalist Pere Rusiñol, also accused – with the aim of “personally and professionally discrediting” the heads of the UCO and Anti-Corruption. “They arranged a series of meetings with people who could collaborate, in exchange for explicit favors,” the accusation points out.
The letter from the Prosecutor’s Office adds: “The objective of those accused would be to discredit the heads of the UCO and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, in order to annul or squander the investigations of both institutions in relevant cases that affect politicians and businessmen.” The public ministry considers it “determining” that Díez claimed to speak in “name of high levels of the State” to give “credibility” to the alleged “bribe offers” she made: “By presenting herself as a qualified representative of the PSOE.”
The investigations against Leire Díez, who is summoned to testify on November 11, have been expanding since the opening of the case. The focus was initially placed on a meeting that the accused, together with the lawyer Jacobo Teijelo, had with businessman Alejandro Hamlyn, who is being prosecuted by the National Court for alleged hydrocarbon fraud. As heard in an audio of that meeting, Díez asked Hamlyn for dirty laundry from members of the UCO and the Prosecutor’s Office, while insinuating that he would receive supposed favors from the public ministry in return.
But, subsequently, more alleged maneuvers of the former socialist militant have come to light. Two prosecutors, José Grinda and Ignacio Stampa, reported that the suspected group had offered them favors in exchange for compromising information.
According to the summary, Stampa said that a person he trusted sent him the message that the Government wanted to contact him to “apologize” for his abrupt departure from the Anti-Corruption Department (after an intense discredit campaign against him). To do this, they asked him to arrange a meeting to which Pérez Dolset and Santos Cerdán, Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, would attend. Despite his misgivings, the prosecutor says that he accepted “in order to know his true intentions.” And that meeting took place, which was not attended by Cerdán, but by Pérez Dolset and Leire Díez.
“It was Leire who, at the beginning, excused the absence of Santos Cerdán, stating that she would later convey to him everything that was said,” Stampa told her superiors when denouncing the events, when she added that the socialist activist defined herself as “the person that the PSOE has put in place to find out what is behind the irregularities in police reports and those of the Anti-Corruption prosecutors.” “The meeting lasted more than three hours and, during all that time, they tried to demonstrate that they had in-depth knowledge of various summaries of interest to the Government,” explained Stampa, who explained how he was asked about “irregularities that he might be aware of” by Alejandro Luzón, chief anti-corruption prosecutor; José Grinda, also a prosecutor in that area; and Manuel García-Castellón, investigating magistrate of the National Court until his retirement in 2024.
At one point, Stampa claims that he asked them why they were interested “now” in contacting him. And, according to the prosecutor, Peréz Dolset replied: “When Begoña’s accusation came out [Gómez, esposa de Pedro Sánchez]Leire called me because the president had given him the order to clean, without limit […] The situation must be reversed, no matter who falls. And that’s what the president said.”
Stampa claims that Leire Díez also told him that Sánchez himself and the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, would know that they had met.
