One hypothesis regarding the Cerdán case would be that Benet Salellas's line of defense was true, in the sense that the Civil Guard had fabricated false evidence and that the court (the Supreme Court) had admitted this false evidence as incriminating evidence. This doesn't necessarily mean that the former PSOE organizational secretary and his friends, former minister José Luis Ábalos and former advisor Koldo García, weren't guilty, nor was a troop of notorious orangutans. But it could happen (and it wouldn't be the first time) that someone within the police and justice system, driven by the understandable and fiery enthusiasm to save Spain, had decided to add some intensity to the account of the events. For example, it seems certain that these former Socialist leaders shared his enthusiasm for prostitution, and for paying for it with money of dubious origin, and proof that this is the case is that the PSOE has included an anti-whoremongering clause in its internal code of conduct. But certainly, the fact that hooligans are and behave like hooligans is not incompatible with the existence of manipulated evidence.
There's no need to even invoke Pegasus, a case that falls within the realm of high-level espionage. We're talking about a much lower level: police, judges, and prosecutors, doing dirty work to overthrow a government they don't like and which, moreover, they consider illegitimate, as has been repeated so many times by the nationalist right. In Spain, the fabrication of false evidence (and its subsequent publication, its use in shaping public and published opinion, and even its judicialization) has been a widely used tool by the so-called "criminal" government. patriotic police when it comes to casting suspicions, or making false accusations, on enemies of the state. Everyone from Xavier Trias to Pablo Iglesias, and right now including Mónica Oltra and dozens of pro-independence or left-wing activists, and even human rights activists, knows this well. The difference in this case would be creating this type of evidence and using it against members of the Spanish government or people they trust the most. The crime and democratic fraud would be the same, but there would be a qualitative leap in its scope: going against the PSOE in Spain is still different from going against the Catalans or the anti-establishment.
If, at some point in the judicial process of the Cerdán case—which promises to be long and winding—it were proven that these kinds of practices have existed, the scandal would be massive and would necessarily have consequences. This weekend's meeting of the PSOE federal committee and the PP congress marked the start of the final race toward the next general elections, a race that—however long it lasts—will likely be even more aggressive and even muddier than the legislature so far. Fabricated evidence admitted in court against the ruling party would be another plot twist that isn't apparent at the moment but wouldn't be implausible, given the frenzied tone of the comedy. Let's note it only as a hypothesis.
