He has dedicated the little more than half an hour that his statement lasted before the court that is trying him for the alleged irregularities in the award in 2017 to David Sánchez, brother of the President of the Government, of a senior management position in the Badajoz Provincial Council that he headed, to repeatedly denying any irregularity. The rest of the positions and officials of the provincial body have followed the same line and have rejected anomalies in the administrative process. During his intervention, Gallardo took the opportunity to charge both against the popular accusations – which he described as “political”, which has cost him a reprimand from the president of the court, Judge José Antonio Patrocinio – and against the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, whose reports point to him as the alleged political instigator of the alleged maneuvers for Pedro Sánchez’s relative to obtain the position. “Yesterday I attended a fiction novel,” he stated regarding the statement on Wednesday by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, the top police officer for the investigations. The president of the court has also reproached him for these words.
Gallardo, who is facing a request for a year and a half in prison for his alleged participation in a crime of influence peddling in competition with another of administrative prevarication for the hiring of David Sánchez, has distanced himself from the creation and, above all, from the awarding of the position of coordinator of the activities of the two conservatories in the province to David Sánchez. “If I had wanted to create a custom suit, I could have created 27 custom suits to give,” he said, referring to the positions of trusted personnel that public officials can create with complete freedom.
The former socialist leader from Extremadura, who has only responded to the questions of his defense lawyer, wanted to make it clear that at that time he had serious differences with Pedro Sánchez and that, in fact, he supported Susana Díaz in the internal war that the PSOE experienced in 2016. For this reason, he added that his relationship then with the current President of the Government was not “fluid.” “At that time I was not even aware that I had brothers,” he added to emphasize this lack of harmony. In fact, he has stressed that he only learned that David Sánchez was running for the position he finally occupied shortly before being awarded and because a member of his cabinet told him about it. “May the best win,” he assured was his response.
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The statements of Sánchez and Gallardo in 4 minutes
Photo: Andres Rodriguez | Video: epv
The former socialist president has insisted that the decision to create both the position that David Sánchez finally occupied and other positions in the deputation was “political” and that, therefore, he was the “most responsible” as president of this public body, a position that he had already expressed in his statements to the media during the investigation of the case. However, he recalled that in 2016 he managed 2,000 employees between the Badajoz Provincial Council and the Villanueva de la Serena City Council, where he was mayor, and that to do so he needed help and, therefore, he was not aware of the details. “It would be impossible to handle 2,000 people,” he added. He later stated that he has “never, absolutely never” dealt with “personnel issues” and has denied any attempt to influence the creation or allocation of positions in public organizations.
Gallardo has insisted that the position of coordinator of activities at the conservatories was not created with David Sánchez in mind – Lieutenant Colonel Balas had stated the day before that the investigations indicate that it was “predetermined” to be occupied by the president’s brother. “There what is being thought about is a need, not a person,” he stated. Asked by his defense lawyer, Juan José Torres, about the supposed unjustified delay in filling the position that Lieutenant Colonel Balas highlighted the day before in his statement, the former socialist leader has assured that the statement by the Civil Guard command reflected “an enormous lack of knowledge of how a public administration works” and that taking five and a half months to fill a position, as happened with the position that was awarded to the president’s brother, is “totally normal.”
Regarding his relationship with David Sánchez while they were both in the deputation – both ended up leaving their positions in the organization at different times after their accusation -, Gallardo has assured that it was “very scarce.” After all, he and Gallardo maintained “a close relationship and even spoke on weekends.”
Officials, positions and a friend
After the former regional leader of the PSOE, it was the turn of the rest of the nine who sat on the bench to testify, who in all cases have followed the same strategy as this one and David Sánchez of answering only the questions of their defense lawyers and denying the accusations. The first was Elisa Moriano, director of the Culture area of the Badajoz Provincial Council at that time. Moriano has insisted that his department was only in charge of collecting the proposal and suggestions to create the position that was finally awarded to the president’s brother. “We process, but we do not write,” he said, before stating that “the most suitable candidate was chosen,” in reference to Pedro Sánchez’s relative.
Cristina Núñez, responsible for Culture of the Badajoz council at that time, has also defended his election for the position – “I consider him to be the best” – and has denied that the president’s relative did not perform the functions of his position: “Yes, he worked, no one told me otherwise.” In the same sense, Juana Cintas, former director of Human Resources of the provincial council, has declared: “I have not known of any non-compliance, neither through an anonymous complaint nor by a hierarchical superior or his colleagues who have told us that he was complying or not with his job, his day or anything else.”
For his part, Manuel Candalija, a member of the evaluation commission that chose David Sánchez for the position, has assured that he did not know whose brother he was when he interviewed him. Candalija has stated that the project presented that day by Pedro Sánchez’s relative was the “most interesting” of the 11 candidates for the position. He has also criticized for its length, less than two pages, the one proposed by Cristina de Frutos, the candidate for the position who, in her statement on Tuesday, denounced that she was “discriminated against.”
Francisco Martos, who as Deputy for Culture signed in 2022 the change of nomenclature of David Sánchez’s position to that of head of the Performing Arts Office, has stated that he had no influence on this decision. “Everything that has been done was well done,” said the current mayor of Castuera, who has even stated that, although that modification did not entail a salary improvement for the president’s brother, “seen from today, his salary would have increased” for the programs he launched. Emilia Parejo, who was director of the Culture area, also praised the initiatives of Pedro Sánchez’s relative to spread the opera in the province, which she described as “success.”
Félix González, head of the human resources service and who participated in the commission that elected David Sánchez for the position, has assured that he did not suffer any type of pressure to award the position to the president’s brother. Ricardo Cabezas, who was a PSOE candidate for mayor of Badajoz in 2019 and current deputy in the Culture area, has also denied pressure, although in his case regarding the hiring of Luis Carrero, a friend of David Sánchez who in 2023 obtained a position in the deputation.
The last to testify was, precisely, Carrero, an official who worked at the Palace of La Moncloa and whom Pedro Sánchez’s relative refers to in a message as “little brother.” Carrero, who joined the Badajoz council in 2024, has denied that David Sánchez provided him with privileged information to obtain the position in this public body and has insisted that the exchange of messages he had with his friend about the position he finally occupied before the rules were made public and that support the accusation against him was a “misunderstanding.”
