What's happening with the private messages between Sánchez and Ábalos? All the key details

MadridFor four days now, the political debate in Spain has been marked by the leaks of private messages exchanged by former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos with Spanish President Pedro Sánchez and other Socialist leaders. The publication in the newspaper The World It has generated controversy and leaves some questions unanswered.

What do WhatsApp users say?

Sánchez's derogatory comments

"We are in the laundry room," Sanchez complained during the control session in Congress this Wednesday, downplaying the content of the WhatsAppThe first installment, published on Sunday, revealed how the Spanish president and socialist general secretary asked Ábalos – at that time the PSOE's organizational secretary – to give warnings to men of the party, Some of them have already retired from the front line, with whom he had a known poor relationship. These are Emiliano García-Page (Castilla La Mancha), Javier Lambán (Aragón), and Guillermo Fernández Vara (Extremadura). The Spanish president calls them "firecracker" or "unpresentable". "Stop being a pain in the ass", he claims in relation to the president of Castilla-La Mancha.

In the following days, messages have also been published in which Sánchez criticizes members who were then part of the council of ministers. This is the case of Pablo Iglesias, former vice president of the government, former vice president of the Spanish government, who calls "birdBeyond comments about other people, the conversations also reveal the close relationship between Sánchez and Ábalos. Once he had already been dismissed and before he was yet to be investigated, the Socialist leader confessed to Ábalos that he had often "missed" working with him and expressed his personal solidarity with the former minister. Content has also been leaked from conversations between Ábalos and María Jesús Montero a year after he was dismissed. "I have you in my soul," the current First Vice President told him. Mentioned collaterally in various investigations, such as that of Ábalos in the Supreme Court and that of Begoña Gómez in a Madrid court. Sánchez told Ábalos that it was worth considering the option of bailing out the airline. The World He explains that he still has more messages – "hundreds or thousands more" – so more deliveries are expected.

The UCO, in the spotlight

The source of the leak is unclear, although all eyes have turned to the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, which is analyzing the information seized in the Ábalos case at the Supreme Court. The reason is that there is speculation that the origin of these messages is a hard drive belonging to the former minister that was at the home of Koldo García, his former advisor also under investigation by the Supreme Court, and whose home was searched. Another hypothesis is that it was Ábalos himself, but the former Minister of Transport has denied this.

After The Sixth has assured that Ábalos had admitted in a conversation with a journalist from this media that he consented to the leak of the most recent messages, from 2023, by sharing them with a "trusted" person linked to his defense, the former socialist leader specified to X that what he did was confirm the content of the most recent messages. According to Ábalos' version, The World He asked him to "verify" some conversations the newspaper already had. "That doesn't mean I leaked anything," he emphasized. Ábalos did not refuse to publish that content because he understood that Sánchez's displays of affection toward him "were positive."

What does Moncloa say?

The Spanish government will take legal action

The Spanish government downplays the importance of this information and focuses on the publication of private conversations. Sánchez warned this Wednesday in the lower house that it is "a crime." The Spanish government already announced yesterday that if no investigation is opened, it will file a complaint.

Who is using it?

The PP uses them against Sánchez

The main political player to benefit from this leak is the People's Party (PP), which is using the messages as a weapon against Sánchez and, once again, urging him to resign and call elections.The World. Sources in Genoa maintain that this issue is making Sánchez "very uncomfortable" and support the narrative that the Spanish government is increasingly weakened.

Possible violation of privacy

Although the PP argues that Sánchez has no one to denounce and that The World is protected by freedom of information, and it could be considered a criminal offense for revealing secrets if it were proven that the leak was carried out by a public official or someone unrelated to the conversation who was not authorized. The far-right pseudo-union Manos Limpias has already taken the step of bringing the matter before the prosecutor for this crime and has named Ábalos as the "source." The Spanish government has also pointed to a possible violation of Sánchez's right to privacy, as well as the right to confidentiality of communications, given that these are private messages.