The trial being held in the Provincial Court of Badajoz against David Sánchez, the brother of the President of the Government, took an unexpected turn this Thursday afternoon. The PP, Vox and four other popular accusations have presented their definitive conclusions in which they unexpectedly double the initial request for a sentence for David Sánchez, the brother of the President of the Government. Thus, for the relative of the president of Pedro Sánchez, he is sentenced to six years when the crimes of administrative prevarication in a media competition with influence peddling that he is accused of go from two to three. The seventh accusation, that of Clean Hands, has not been adhered to. The Prosecutor’s Office and the defenses have reacted immediately and have asked the court to reject these requests or to grant a period of ten days to study what happened. After a recess, the magistrates have agreed to accept the changes. Next Monday, the parties will begin to present their final reports.
The surprise came when the president of the court, Judge José Antonio Patrocinio, reported the accusations so that the conclusions could be made final. Until the trial was held, the seven popular accusations had acted with a single address, in this case that of Clean Hands, which was the complaint that gave rise to the beginning of the case. However, at the beginning of the oral hearing, they asked to be able to act autonomously and the court accepted it. The first major consequence of this decision occurred this Thursday, once the statements of the 42 witnesses and 11 accused had finished, at which time each of them could make their conclusions definitive.
The first to do so has been Clean Hands, which has modified its provisional document downwards after the court agreed last Monday to declare one of the crimes of which David Sánchez was accused time-barred and to eliminate for the former leader of the PSOE of Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, one of the facts of which he was accused for not having been interrogated during the investigation on them since he was not called to testify again after joining the case. In this way, he asked the president’s brother for three years in prison – the crime that had been eliminated was acceptance of an illegal appointment, which carries a fine – and a year and a half for Gallardo.
However, Hazte Oír and PP have presented, each one for their part, new but coincident writings regarding the classification of the facts, to which the rest of the accusations have adhered: Vox, the Liberium association, Abogados Cristiano and Iustitia Europa. In these new writings, these accusations not only accuse the alleged irregularities in the appointment in 2017 of David Sánchez as coordinator of activities of the conservatories of the Provincial Council of Badajoz and the hiring of his friend Luis Carrero by the same public body in 2023, but they include a new punishable act: the change of nomenclature of the position occupied by the president’s brother. And, furthermore, from the year and a half for each of the two initial crimes they go on to ask for two years for the three crimes.
That translates into six years in prison for Pedro Sánchez’s relative and four for Gallardo, who cannot be accused of the last crime. For Luis Carrero, the official who called David Sánchez “little brother,” in an email they ask for two years in prison. The requests of the other eight defendants, the penalties requested by PP and Hazte Oír are not the same. The representation of the popular ones asks for disqualification sentences for all of them, while the association proposes between a year and a year and a half for them.
The announcement of the accusations has caused the outburst of both the Prosecutor’s Office and the accusations, which have asked the court to reject the substantial modification of the classification of the facts. In their brief interventions, the lawyers have called the change “surprising” and denounced that it caused them “defenselessness.” One of the lawyers has even spoken of “absolute subversion.” Another has described it as an “intolerable abnormality.” In the opinion of all of them, the change represents a modification of the “factual account” of the events being prosecuted. The court, after a recess of just over 15 minutes, has admitted the changes, considering that they do not represent a substantial change in the facts in its writings.
