Judge Peinado withdraws Begoña Gómez's passport and sends her to trial

Judge Juan Carlos Peinado sends Begoña Gómez to trial and revokes her passport. The magistrate resolved this Saturday the request for precautionary measures that the popular prosecutions had made. In addition to the withdrawal of the passport, he also obliges her to report to the court every fifteen days. These are the two measures requested by Hazte Oír, the ultra entity that groups the popular prosecutions, because it considered that there was a risk of flight. However, it had not requested preventive detention. Peinado also imposes the same precautionary measures on Begoña Gómez's advisor, Cristina Álvarez.

On Monday, the preliminary hearing was held for a trial that will be by popular jury and where the prosecutions requested the precautionary measures. Peinado has taken five days to decide whether to accept them or not and, in the meantime, has also opened a new line of investigation for the crimes of prevarication and fraud to the interests of the European Union for a contract that was awarded to a company owned by Juan Carlos Barrabés.

The role that Peinado grants to the escorts

How does he justify the withdrawal of passport to Gómez? Peinado speculates about the sentence Gómez may receive and posits the "hypothesis" that it is more than two years in prison. In this case, he recalls that he could not suspend it —because it is not less than two years— and she would have to enter a penitentiary center. "Contemplating this possibility, that for the accused [Gómez and Álvarez], it is a matter of evading the action of justice, fulfilling the risk of flight, which is to be avoided with the adoption of a precautionary measure," he justifies.

He also uses another argument. Although the Spanish president's wife is always accompanied by bodyguards —the argument her defense used to reject the precautionary measures requested by Hazte Oír—, the judge considers that these agents can collaborate in Gómez's escape: "These agents at a given moment can, either on their own initiative or following orders from their hierarchical superiors, be precisely the ones who collaborate in the action or actions to be carried out, to facilitate this escape, making it impossible for the accused to be at the disposal of justice." The judge concludes by stating that the "condition" of Pedro Sánchez as president of the Spanish government is something "ephemeral, and therefore transitory," which means that the bodyguards Begoña Gómez now has "would disappear": "Which would further facilitate this hypothetical escape."

Peinado sends Begoña Gómez to trial for the crimes of influence peddling, private sector business corruption, misappropriation, and embezzlement of public funds. He also wants to put her advisor, Cristina Álvarez, on trial for the same crimes. Furthermore, he also sends the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés to trial for the crimes of influence peddling and private sector business corruption.

Moncloa attacks Peinado

The reaction of the socialists to Peinado's decision has been almost immediate. From Moncloa, sources consulted by ARA consider that this move confirms the judge's "persecution, obsession, and disproportion" against Begoña Gómez. In fact, they consider that the decision lacks "all legal sense and only addresses political motives", reports Andrea Zamorano. In the same vein, the socialists' organization secretary, Rebeca Torró, has described it as "excessive and disproportionate" in a message on X.

Party sources have also insisted on the same thesis, emphasizing that Begoña Gómez is "innocent": "Some have tried to build a public condemnation without evidence to support it. They have played with the reputation and life of a person for the mere fact of being the wife of the president of the government", they lament. From the PSOE, moreover, they consider that this case is also "undermining the image of justice and democracy". However, they warn that they will continue to do "politics with a capital P".