Ayuso's right hand does not 'go forward': the judge clears her of having leaked journalists' data

BarcelonaMiguel Ángel Rodríguez, the all-powerful chief of staff for Isabel Díaz Ayuso, will not go "forward", using the expression he himself has so often used against PSOE leaders. The judge has decided to dismiss the case against him for leaking the names and photo of two journalists from El País who were investigating the tax fraud case of the Madrid president's boyfriend. After hearing the statements of both Rodríguez and Alberto González Amador, Ayuso's partner, the magistrate considers that there are no indications of a breach of secrecy, as stated in the order to which ARA has had access. The PSOE has already warned that it will appeal the decision.

The chief of staff, who denied committing any crime in court, disseminated the names, surnames, and images of two journalists in a chat to various media outlets who in 2024 were identified by the police near Ayuso's residence. "There was never a breach of secrecy," he stated after testifying: "[The affected journalists] are two people who sign every day in their newspaper, it's no secret...", he said.

Ayuso's right-hand man, against whom both the PSOE and the two journalists had filed a complaint, defended having explained that the reporters—according to him—"were bothering neighbors and minors" next to the popular leader's house and admitted that González Amador had passed him the photograph of both through a neighbor, a version that the businessman reiterated before the judge.

The magistrate has decided to dismiss the case, considering that the leaked information "does not contain any confidential or personal data of the affected journalists." In this sense, she agrees with Rodríguez when he states that "these same details and their photograph are published in the same newspaper for which they work."

Likewise, she dismisses that the photographs were obtained illegally, through the police officers escorting Ayuso. "No data obtained during the investigation allows us to maintain [...] that the details consisting of the name and surname, nor the image of the two journalists [...] were obtained from the information received from the police officers who identified them that day in public," states the judge.

The head of the instruction section of Madrid's court of instance 25 provisionally closes the case thus after the Madrid Court of Appeal forced her to deal with it when she had opposed it. The PSOE, however, has made it clear that it will not give up. The organization secretary of the Madrid socialists, Pilar Sánchez-Acera, has announced that they will appeal the dismissal of the case. "We will not allow the alleged crimes of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's government to be dismissed through the back door," she said in a video sent to the media.