The Public Prosecutor's Office requests to charge Zapatero for embezzlement over the Saudi Arabia jewels

MadridSignificant movements in the Plus Ultra case. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has formally requested the indictment of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for embezzlement for having kept the jewels gifted to him by the King of Saudi Arabia in 2007 during an official visit to Spain, according to the document to which ARA has had access. It was the former Spanish president who, a month ago, assured the judge that this was the origin of the most valuable jewels that the UDEF found in his office last May. Prosecutor Elena Lorente now asserts that this may lead to the presumption that he also committed a crime of embezzlement. For the moment, in the part of the case related to the jewels, he is only being investigated for tax crimes and smuggling.

“Through his document, he comes to acknowledge that he accepted jewels of very significant value and that he did not hand them over to the State Heritage,” the Prosecutor's Office summarizes. “We would be facing an alleged act of misappropriation of public funds that would fall within the crime of embezzlement,” it justifies. Subsequently, Judge José Luis Calama has accepted the Prosecutor's Office's request and has demanded that the Sub-Directorate General of State Heritage deliver, within a maximum period of two days, the record listing the “institutional objects” that Zapatero received as Prime Minister of Spain from 2004 to 2011 and handed over in March 2012 after leaving the Moncloa.

The public prosecutor's office also explains that The Objective –a conservative digital outlet that has been in Pedro Sánchez's crosshairs for some time– published this same record a few days ago and that the jewels under suspicion “do not appear” there. On the other hand, a gold table clock with emeralds that the King of Saudi Arabia gave him that same day does appear.

To give credibility to his version, Zapatero sent the judge two letters that he himself had sent to the head of protocol of the Saudi Arabian royal court to try to obtain confirmation of the facts. Since neither of the two letters received a response, he requested that the judge issue a letter rogatory to Saudi Arabia to be able to verify it. However, the Prosecutor's Office opposes this because it believes it is “unjustified” and would be “doubtfully operative,” and has preferred to turn directly to the State Heritage. Furthermore, it reproaches Zapatero that, on the day he went to testify, he did not mention that he had sent the letter two days earlier: “The explanatory zeal that the investigated person seemed to have is barely credible,” it remarks.

The PSOE annoys the judge of the Leire case

In parallel, the other judge of the National Court who has made a move this Friday is Santiago Pedraz, who is investigating the Leire case. He has reprimanded the PSOE for having delayed the delivery of the documentation that he requested regarding the lawyers it hired from 2021 to 2025. He gives it fifteen extra days to provide all the information "without further delay" and "without subordinating it" to other actions. He is referring to the PSOE's decision to ask the General Council of Spanish Lawyers if the information he requested could violate professional secrecy. According to what ARA has learned, the corporation has avoided making a statement and has referred the socialists to the Madrid Bar Association.

The socialists also argued that their efforts were focused on the electoral campaign and that the information was scattered across the different autonomous communities. The "unilateral" maneuver of the PSOE has angered the National Court judge: "It cannot be admitted that the recipient of a requirement conditions its compliance on their own assessment of the relevance, proportionality, or appropriateness of the agreed measure," he laments.

Leire Díez files a lawsuit against the PP

In another direction, Leire Díez has filed a complaint against the PP for the crimes of slander with publicity, against moral integrity and digital identity impersonation due to the video that the Popular Party spread on social media in which a deep fake of her made with artificial intelligence appeared. “It is created expressly and intentionally to humiliate her, vex her and cause serious damage to her dignity,” denounces the document, to which ARA has had access.

The person known as the plumber of the PSOE laments that the dissemination of the content is causing her “extremely serious and irreparable damage” and explains that she has suffered an anxiety attack, that she is the object of “all kinds of insults, disqualifications and vexations” and that both she and her daughters “have had to isolate themselves in their home.” Furthermore, she accuses the PP of acting with a “reckless disregard for the truth” with “the sole intention of causing harm” and “the unequivocal purpose of undermining” her “honor and her dignity.”