The number two of the Civil Guard denies pressures to stop the investigation of Sánchez's circle

MadridNo pressure or orders not to investigate Pedro Sánchez's circle. The Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the Civil Guard, who is under investigation for malfeasance and obstruction of justice in the Leire Díez case, is defending himself before Judge Santiago Pedraz. A witness stated that in July 2024 he urged officers to “step aside” in judicial cases with political implications and urged them not to be proactive and to cede the initiative in driving cases to the judges. But for more than two hours he has denied any maneuver to torpedo the investigations: he assured that at no time did he say they should step aside and denied any kind of pressure.

In a somewhat tense interrogation, according to sources present in the room, he answered all questions and admitted that he does not get along well with the officers of the Central Operational Unit (UCO). Regarding the files that were opened and which were one of the main reasons for the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to request his indictment, he framed internal investigations as normal. In the case of the investigation into the leak of Begoña Gómez's email, he said there was a risk that there might be some data about Pedro Sánchez. He also recounted that Mercedes González told him on May 5, 2025, that she knew Leire Díez.

Manuel Llamas arrived at the National Court at 9:40 a.m., 35 minutes before his scheduled time, accompanied by his lawyer, Edmundo Bal, who was the number two for Ciutadans in Congress last term. Nine minutes later, the director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, arrived, defended by Rosa María Seoane, who was one of the State Attorneys in the Procés trial.

Postponed declaration

It was also planned for this Thursday morning for the Director General of the Civil Guard to testify, but she will have to return in 24 hours to the National Court because she has not had time: Manuel Llamas has been testifying for so long that the magistrate has been forced to postpone the second interrogation. According to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, González facilitated an “instrumental use” of disciplinary proceedings as a “pressure mechanism” towards the police investigators of the cases involving Pedro Sánchez's circle.

The director of the Civil Guard began to be in the eye of the hurricane because the so-called plumber of the PSOE boasted that she "dealt with" her and that they had a "very good relationship". The UCO discovered three meetings between the two: on September 30, 2024, December 20, 2024, and April 2, 2025. She has admitted two meetings, but she has reduced them to a "simple contact" over an unimportant coffee. The two knew each other from when Mercedes González was government delegate in Madrid, a position she held from 2021 to 2023.

An “intimidating effect”

Despite the statements by Mercedes González with Leire Díez, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office requested their indictment, focusing on the internal files opened in 2024 and 2025, which are under suspicion. The prosecutors believe that the "real purpose" of the three was to generate an "intimidating effect" to "condition the development" of the investigations: "They became an instrument used to exert intimidation".

The document, to which ARA had access, maintains that there may have been a "repeated and diverted use" of disciplinary power as a "pressure mechanism" to "hinder or alter" the "freedom" of the investigators. "We must remember the discouraging effect derived from the abusive use of disciplinary power as a form of institutional intimidation," it adds.

Likewise, it alludes to the “systematic and continued use” of the disciplinary apparatus as a “mechanism of harassment” directed specifically “against those who conduct particularly sensitive research” and directly mentions the fragment of the sentence from the trial of the Procés in which the Supreme Court referred to “environmental intimidation”.