Zapatero's defense offensive to nullify the main evidence in the case
The defense of the former Spanish president asks that it be proven that the conversations were intercepted with judicial approval
BarcelonaThe defense of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has launched an offensive to annul as evidence the conversations that led to the imputation of the former Spanish president in the Plus Ultra case. His lawyer has sent a letter to Judge José Luis Calama stating that if the conversations were not intercepted with judicial approval, "they must be excluded from the proceedings" and that, therefore, this would entail "promoting an incident of nullity." The validity of this evidence is seen as the great legal battle between the former president and the investigating judge that will determine the future of the proceedings.
In this regard, lawyer Víctor Moreno Catena refers to a "crucial" hard drive containing conversations of a lawyer implicated in the case, Miguel Palomero, and "other private conversations of third parties affected by the entries and searches" that were carried out on October 24, 2024, following a request for international legal cooperation from France and Switzerland. These conversations, explains the lawyer, have been analyzed in police reports from the UDEF and are also included in the complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in November 2025, which led to the opening of a separate proceeding in the Madrid court that began investigating the Plus Ultra case and later moved to the National Court.
The lawyer emphasizes that the resolution that transferred the case to the National Court was "based" on a chat called "Danilo-España" and that the judge considered "that an international organization for the laundering of possible crimes committed in Venezuela and other countries could exist." The defense, furthermore, points out that the conversations were analyzed in pre-procedural investigation proceedings opened by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in December 2025, when the matter was still before the Madrid court. The lawyer stresses that the digital material was intercepted "for a purpose and in the service of proceedings followed abroad," although it has been "subsequently used in successive Spanish internal investigations with a different objective." And this, he recalls, requires "judicial authorization" that Zapatero's defense requests in its submission: "That it be investigated whether the source of evidence and its derivations were regularly obtained."
In view of all this, it asks that the Prosecutor's Office indicate which judicial resolution authorized "the police forces to analyze private communications" and also the "place of this complicated investigation" so that it can be assumed "as a diligence that was regularly obtained".
The authorization of the USA
In parallel, the former Spanish president also warns the judge that the US authorization to use the content of the mobile phone of the main shareholder of Plus Ultra, Rodolfo Reyes, is not sufficient to be validated as evidence in this case and insists that it should not be used until there is a response to the rogatory commission. Zapatero's lawyer, Víctor Moreno Catena, makes this consideration in an appeal for reform against the magistrate's decision to reject his request to extend the legal cooperation request to the US so that it includes details about its traceability and chain of custody, arguing that they should wait for the response from the US authorities.