Spanish Judge that was in charge of Pedro Sanchez brother corruption case testifies that she suffered a campaign of intimidation, but doesn’t know from who

Judge Beatriz Biedma, who led the investigation into Pedro Sánchez’s brother, has told the National Court that she felt “distressed” upon learning that there were manoeuvres being made against her, although she added that she does not know whether the former Socialist Party member Leire Díez was behind them. Biedma, who gave evidence as an aggrieved party on Thursday in the so-called Leire Díez case, defended her decision to join the proceedings as a victim of the alleged “criminal organisation” led by Leire Díez and Santos Cerdán, the former organisational secretary of the PSOE, who are accused of obstructing the investigations involving the PSOE and the Government. They allegedly instigated complaints against the magistrate and enlisted the help of a former judge who was at odds with Biedma. She appeared before Judge Santiago Pedraz, just a few hours after the Civil Guard’s Central Operational Unit (UCO) reported that a witness, linked to a drug-trafficking clan, claimed that the plot’s organisers had contacted them and that they wanted to “cause physical harm” to the judge.

According to legal sources, on Thursday, Biedma described two incidents that caused her concern. The first was that, when she went to collect her daughters from school, she was told that her brother had been there, but she does not have a brother. The second was that, at another location, she was told that her secretary had been asking for her there earlier, but she said she does not have a secretary either.

Biedma’s statement has been met with enormous anticipation. She led the investigation that resulted in the conviction of David Sánchez, the Prime Minister’s brother, who was sentenced in July by the Badajoz Provincial Court to nine years’ disqualification from public office for the crime of Malfeasance, relating to alleged irregularities in his employment in 2017 by the Provincial Deputation. The case file for the Leire Díez case describes an alleged two-pronged plan devised to sabotage that and other cases which were damaging to the PSOE and the Government: on the one hand, contacting individuals who could provide compromising information about officers, judges and prosecutors involved in the investigations, thereby “undermining” their “credibility”; and, on the other, an attempt to “encourage” the opening of “internal investigations” within the Civil Guard to create a “climate” of intimidation amongst UCO officers.

In this regard, as legal sources emphasise, Biedma told Pedraz(the judge) that members of the armed institute(civil guard) themselves had informed her that they were being subjected to “pressure”. Among other matters, the judge reported that the officers had explained to her that disciplinary proceedings had been initiated against them. However, the judge has also emphasised that she was not influenced by anyone and that her rulings on the case against Sánchez’s brother were not affected.