Sánchez's brother, sentenced to 9 years of disqualification without prison

MadridThe Badajoz Provincial Court has sentenced David Sánchez, the brother of the Spanish president, to nine years of disqualification as a necessary cooperator in a crime of administrative prevarication. On the other hand, he avoids prison and is cleared of the crime of influence peddling. The popular accusations, made up of – among others – Manos Limpias, Hazte Oír, the PP, and Vox, requested six years in prison for him. The conviction is not for the creation of the job he obtained at the Badajoz Provincial Council in 2017 as coordinator of conservatory activities, but for the change in the job title with the aim of actually creating a high-level management position with "radically different" functions. Likewise, the Badajoz Provincial Court has sentenced Miguel Ángel Gallardo, president of the Provincial Council at the time of the events and leader of the PSOE of Extremadura from 2024 to 2025, to eighteen years of disqualification. And Luis Carrero, a friend of David Sánchez and who was an advisor at Moncloa, has been sentenced to nine years of disqualification, as have the other eight defendants. At the start of the trial, the court declared prescribed the crime of accepting an illegal appointment for which he faced a fine of 32,400 euros.

The sentence, of 377 pages, makes five mentions of Pedro Sánchez. It alleges, for example, that what is "determining" is the creation of high-level management positions "conceived in the exclusive interest" of a "close person" or "linked by family ties" to "who would hold the presidency of the Spanish government and was a top-tier political figure". The hiring was for functions that were not "necessary or urgent", that had previously been carried out by a person with "inferior administrative category" and after a process "violating the elementary principles of contracting".

The Prosecutor's Office requested acquittal for David Sánchez and the other ten defendants because it considered that none of the suspicions had been proven. Prosecutor Begoña García Boró argued that Sánchez's brother's position already existed and that, during its creation and award, there was no warning of illegality. During their statements, the defendants denied preferential treatment. “I did not have a fluid relationship with him and not even at that time was I aware that he had siblings”, stated Miguel Ángel Gallardo about Pedro Sánchez, who during the selection process was neither the president of the Spanish government nor the secretary-general of the PSOE.

For his part, Emilio Cortés, David Sánchez's lawyer, alleged that it was a “trial of a contentious nature for administrative acts from 2017 that have not been claimed by anyone”. “We must distinguish whether he is a real citizen or a second-class citizen, let's see if it turns out that he will have to go live in a tribe because he is the brother of who knows who,” he said. At the beginning of the trial, he denounced that the investigation had been “prospective” and had had an “inspiration of a political nature”. “The root is rotten,” he lamented. And he lamented that the popular accusers wanted to carry out a “scrutiny” or “historical déjà-vu” on a hiring from nine years ago

The trial was set for sentencing on June 9. In the last session, the former leader of the PSOE in Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, reiterated his innocence: “Our only guilt is not having the same ideas as the popular accusers,” he proclaimed. “They have lost interest in the trial because they have condemned us socially,” he added.