This is how it all began: the key meeting in Ferraz that the judge believes activated the sewers of the PSOE

MadridIt was April 24, 2024, on the eve of the campaign for the Catalan Parliament elections, when Pedro Sánchez dropped a bombshell on social media. A letter to the public in which he confessed to being "deeply in love with his wife" and questioned whether it was worth continuing after learning that legal proceedings had been opened against Begoña Gómez in a court. He took five days to reflect, during which many assumed he would resign... but he stayed. He decided to resist. The reader will wonder why this episode is being brought up now, but there is an explanation: it was during this period of reflection that Judge Santiago Pedraz places the beginning of the new judicial front that the PSOE has faced since last Wednesday.

According to the ruling, on April 26, 2024, a meeting took place on Ferraz street, at the socialists' headquarters in Madrid, which marked a "turning point" in the alleged plot being investigated by the National Court. It considers that at the meeting it was decided to counteract the investigations into Sánchez's wife, his brother, and others through an alleged criminal plan. According to the ruling, the then organization secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, the party's director of communication, Ion Antolín, the militant Leire Díez, the businessman Javier Pérez Dolset, and Juan Manuel Serrano, who was Sánchez's chief of staff at the PSOE and director of Correos, were present.

It should be noted that at that time Pérez Dolset and Leire Díez were part of a group that was theoretically investigating the police's practices during Mariano Rajoy's government, along with other individuals such as the late journalist Patrícia López, who did not attend the meeting for personal reasons. According to the judge's account, on that day Santos Cerdán decides to activate this group because they had "information that would help the president." The magistrate presents a handwritten note from Leire Díez, seized during the investigation, which reinforces that everything began then: "We have tried to contact the PSOE for two years and only when Begoña Gómez's issue happened did they receive us."

From that moment on, the alleged criminal activity begins according to the judge: the group led by Cerdán devises a strategy to "destabilize the judicial cases" that affected the PSOE or the government, with the aim of preserving the "political interests at stake and hindering proceedings that could directly impact members of the executive". For the magistrate, the PSOE is directly involved in the scheme, as he maintains that Cerdán places the entire party structure at the group's disposal, in addition to the necessary funding. What exactly did they do? They made offers to officials, says the judge, and at the very least, he assures that they attempted to buy off a witness in the judicial proceedings.

The Villarejo audios

The magistrate notes that beyond obstructing judicial proceedings affecting the PSOE, they also intend to disseminate certain information through a media plan in which journalist Patrícia López plays a fundamental role, who receives 20,000 euros supposedly from the network to launch Crónica Libre and disseminate content from the audios of commissioner José Manuel Villarejo. These audios had been previously obtained through a meeting of victims of judicial investigations, including Operation Catalonia. This is why the judge asks how many times the former president of Barça Sandro Rossell or Villarejo went to the PSOE headquarters between 2024 and 2025.

In this way, Santiago Pedraz investigated the alleged sewers of the PSOE, designed to expose the PP's bad practices and at the same time stop any judicial process that affected the party and the Spanish president's circle. The question that hovers over the entire ruling is: Did Pedro Sánchez know all this while he was reflecting for those five days? The judge makes an indirect reference to it: he cites a conversation between Juan Manuel Serrano and Leire Díez, in which the former tells her: "Look at the boss mentioning the audio issue". The interpretation is not good for the Spanish government: it believes that it is referring to Sánchez's speech on April 29, the day he announced he would stay and resist at Moncloa, and where he vowed to fight against bad practices through "democratic regeneration". Will he consider him aware and complicit in the information that the group led by Santos Cerdán had? Pedraz's investigation has just begun.