After the Public Prosecutor decided no proof of against the law had been discovered, a Madrid decide ordered the case to be closed in 2023. However final December, Spanish police raided the airline’s headquarters and arrested its president, Julio Martínez, for alleged cash laundering.
Throughout a listening to within the Spanish Senate earlier this 12 months, Zapatero acknowledged that over the course of a number of years, he had been paid €463,000 for “written and oral consulting companies” for Análisis Relevante, an organization owned by Martínez, whom he described as a “good friend.” He additionally that he had by no means undertaken any work on behalf of Plus Extremely.
Spain’s main opposition get together, the center-right Individuals’s Get together, seized on Zapatero’s indictment to assault Sánchez. “The precept that hyperlinks the final two Socialist prime ministers of Spain is corruption,” the get together stated in an announcement. “Each have denigrated the establishment they symbolize or have represented.”
However the Socialist Get together’s organizational secretary, Rebeca Torró, got here out in protection of Spain’s former head of presidency and steered his indictment was politically motivated.
“José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was Prime Minister for 2 phrases marked by an formidable program to develop rights, equality, and social safety,” she wrote on X. “The fitting and the far proper have by no means forgiven him for these advances.”
