The PSOE manager holds Santos Cerdán responsible for the payments under suspicion in the Leire Díez case

MadridThe PSOE maintains the script it has established since the Leire Díez case broke out unchanged and continues to raise a wall between Ferraz and the woman known as the socialist fixer. Now it has been the turn of Ana María Fuentes, the party's current manager, who has testified before the National Court as being under investigation for forgery of commercial documents. The Civil Guard and Judge Santiago Pedraz suspect that she falsified invoices and order notes to get money to Leire Díez and, in turn, disguise the payments. Sources present at the testimony relate to ARA that Ana María Fuentes has shifted the blame onto Santos Cerdán, who at that time was the party's number 3 and is also under investigation, alleging that he was the one who made the decisions and who ordered and gave the go-ahead for the order notes, invoices, and payments. She has defended that she did what he told her to do, that she limited herself to paying, and that she "did not control" expressly and specifically what the money was spent on.

Ana María Fuentes, who is the only person from the current PSOE who is charged in this case, has justified that the socialists hired two external lawyers –Ismael Oliver and Jacobo Teijelo– because there was a high volume of litigation. First, the contract was "verbal" and later they put it in black and white in an order note. Subsequently, socialist sources argue that the party "habitually hires" firms "specialized in different matters" and defend that the manager "is unaware" of the content of the work and "limited herself" to "reviewing contracts previously examined" by the Legal Department. Once again, the same official voices reiterate that the manager "formalizes, documents, and processes" the work commissioned by the Organization Secretariat –which Santos Cerdán occupied– and orders them to be paid following his instructions. They are "ordinary expenses" that "are not the responsibility" of either Pedro Sánchez or the party's leadership.

Before the judge, in a statement of less than two hours, answering all parties –including the PP, which leads the popular accusations– and acknowledging that she was nervous, the PSOE manager –according to the same legal sources explaining to this newspaper– also stated that she had no dealings with Leire Díez: she knew nothing about her, they did not meet, she did not see her at Ferraz, and she had no knowledge that there were meetings with her. Regarding the purchase of train and plane tickets for the then-PSOE militant, she pointed to the two employees who handled the arrangements, who –she said– did not go through her. The judge archived the case against them, arguing that they limited themselves to "executing the orders" they received from Santos Cerdán and that there is no evidence that they "knew" they were carrying out an "illicit plan".

Koldo's former lawyer and Operation Catalonia

Another person who has testified is Ismael Oliver, who was Koldo García's lawyer from February to June 2025. Sources present at the statement indicate to ARA that he explained that he was hired by Leire Díez, who said she was acting on behalf of the PSOE, to analyze and review the appearances at the Congressional investigation commission on Operation Catalonia from September 2024 to early 2025. He alleged that Santos Cerdán had an interest in what could be explained there because it had political significance. However, after his contractual relationship with Ferraz ended and when he was already the lawyer for José Luis Ábalos' former advisor, he remained in recurring contact with Leire Díez.

The Civil Guard, for example, found a message from March 2025 in which he told Leire Díez that they needed to go against Alejandro Luzón, the head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. He has now admitted that it was an “unfortunate expression”. The fixer for the PSOE, who –according to him– often went to see him at his office, insinuated to him that the PSOE would pay for Koldo García's defense, but he never charged for the five months he defended him.

Ismael Oliver is also under suspicion because the same amount he received from the PSOE was channeled to Leire Díez, who collected 27,225 euros. To justify it being the exact same figure, he said that Nervis Villalobos –the former Venezuelan minister for whom he is the lawyer– hired Leire Díez to erase his digital footprint, but his accounts were blocked and he could not pay her. And it was Ismael Oliver who took charge of it: she initially asked for much more money, but since they did not reach an agreement, they agreed that it would be the amount he had received from Ferraz.

The thesis of the Civil Guard and the judge

The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard believes that Ana María Fuentes, with the “intermediation” of Leire Díez, “falsified” two engagement letters to the law firm of Ismael Oliver and to Jacobo Teijelo, who is the lawyer for Santos Cerdán. It considers that they subscribed to them in a “merely instrumental” manner to “simulate” a professional relationship and “serve as a means” for the PSOE to be able to “finance the allegedly criminal activity”. Judge Santiago Pedraz pointed to Ana María Fuentes for a “concrete and auxiliary intervention” that places her in a position of “co-authorship or complicity” in payments that served to “remunerate” the maneuvers that Leire Díez was allegedly instigating to “protect” the socialists and Pedro Sánchez.