One of the two reports from UDEF –the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit of the National Police– that the judge has used to impute José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero complains about the obstacles that SEPI –the State's investment arm and the body that greenlit the Plus Ultra bailout– placed during the investigation. "The documentation sent was incomplete and had deficiencies that prevented its analysis," concludes the document, to which ARA has had access. The judge had to make a second request for information because the first batch of documentation was insufficient: "Some of the folders are empty of content and have no documentation and other files cannot be opened," says UDEF. It also regrets that the emails it provided were from the year 2025, four years after the bailout. "It should be noted that these emails exist or have existed," UDEF points out. "It is clear that a flow of communication took place," it adds at another point.

Plus Ultra is the company at the epicenter of the investigation against José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for the public bailout of 53 million euros that he allegedly received thanks to the influence of the former Spanish president. However, the airline is not the only client of Julio Martínez Martínez's corporate network, supposedly directed by the former socialist leader from the shadows. Both the UDEF in its police reports and the National High Court judge José Luis Calama in his indictment order speak of a consolidated organization that sought to profit thanks to Zapatero's "direct intervention" in "high-value international operations." The commission allegedly received from the Venezuelan directors of Plus Ultra would be just one of the plot's income streams.

The indictment of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is not just the indictment of a former Spanish president (which is significant in itself). It is also the indictment of Pedro Sánchez's closest confidant after his inner circle has fallen: José Luis Ábalos, in preventive detention, and Santos Cerdán. Zapatero is the last pillar of the PSOE leader to be called into question by an alleged corruption scheme.

The judge José Luis Calama has charged José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero because he believes he was the "decisional and strategic core" of a "network" that exerted influence. "His leadership is not manifested in a formal or public manner, but through his capacity for direction, coordination, and supervision, avoiding direct execution of the most sensitive tasks as much as possible," says the ruling to which ARA has had access. It emphasizes that this role "is deduced" from "multiple pieces of evidence" and places special emphasis on some of the conversations reflected in the summary (in which Zapatero does not directly participate).

It is not easy to find a photo of him, nor on Google, but his discretion contrasts with the magnitude of the major cases he usually handles. José Luis Calama Teixeira, the judge who has indicted former president Zapatero for the Plus Ultra case, has been part of the Spanish judicial career for three decades and since 2018 has served as a magistrate of the National High Court, where he has stood out for the investigation of espionage against various members of the Spanish government with Pegasus.

4,311 days after Jordi Pujol's confession, the trial against his family has been postponed for sentencing. In between, there has been an arduous judicial investigation that lasted six years, an eight-month stay in prison for the eldest son of the former President of the Generalitat, and a sum of 80,000 pages. On November 24, 2025, the National Court kicked off the trial: 38 sessions, 200 witnesses, 17 defendants defended by the elite of Catalan criminal law, and two accusations. Three judges and one question to answer: was the fortune the Pujol family had in Andorra an inheritance or was it the fruit of corruption? These have been the best moments at the National Court.

After six months and 38 sessions, the National Court puts an end to the Pujol case trial. It is time for the lawyers of the last seven businessmen to defend their conclusions and request their acquittal. One of those who has intervened is Carles Monguilod, lawyer for Gustavo Buesa. "During the investigation, at times I had a slight feeling that there was anA por ellos. Due to the actions of a certain police force, it seemed that the predicate offense [of money laundering] was being part of the Pujol family or being Catalan", he said. "I know that is not the case, I know that this court will not allow it and will conclude with an acquittal sentence", he concluded. He also took the opportunity to refute the slogan the prosecutor mentioned: "I have publicly confronted it. Spain has never stolen and this is an offense to Spaniards and cannot be tolerated". The Prosecutor's Office requests five years in prison for eight businessmen for the crimes of money laundering and document forgery.

For more than two hours, Cristóbal Martell has tried to dismantle the Prosecutor's accusation against Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, who faces 29 years in prison. The family's lawyer began vehemently to highlight the lack of evidence to support the "grandiose assertion" that the former president of the Generalitat wove a "clientelism network" to profit from illegal commissions in exchange for public works: "When an accusation begins with such a bombastic and ambitious frontispiece, one expects columns that solidly support that gross assertion. Nothing," he proclaimed. "Does this satisfy a filing by the public prosecutor's office and bring it to a court in a democratic state?" he asked ironically at one point during his speech. "It does not seem reasonable to bring this to a court of justice in a state of law with guarantees," he added at another point.

After almost six months, the trial in the Pujol case is reaching –now for real– the final stretch, and if the court's optimistic forecasts are met, it will be ready for sentencing on Thursday. On Monday, the testimonies of the accused concluded, with the four businessmen who were left pending ten days ago. At half past eight in the morning, the lawyers were having a relaxed football chat while waiting to be allowed in. And, behind the scenes, journalists and lawyers were taking advantage of the breaks to make predictions about the prosecutor's verdict. Finally, Fernando Bermejo has opted to maintain the prison sentence requests that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office initially requested: 29 years for Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, 17 years for Mercè Gironès –his ex-wife–, 14 years for Josep Pujol, 8 years for his brothers, and 5 years for the nine businessmen. "If there has been no common sense until now, why will there be now?", one of the lawyers wondered a while earlier. And another advised excluding the businessmen who have nothing to do with public works: "Between private individuals, it is much more difficult to maintain the accusation, and the Supreme Court's filter is not easy to overcome", he warned, already thinking about a possible appeal. But the prosecutor has taken the middle road.

The “progressive” judge –or at least proposed by Podem– José Ricardo de Prada summoned President Jordi Pujol to the National Court in Madrid first thing Monday morning. More than making him testify, the intention was to subject him to another forensic examination to exhibit him as a wounded trophy, if not defeated. And this, to then be able to treat him as disabled and remove him from the case and keep open forever the suspicion of hypothetical guilt, something he himself wanted to defend himself against until the end. Perhaps therein lay the risk!

The inheritance from grandfather Florenci has focused the second part of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola's statement at the National Court, which ended up lasting more than six hours. In a session monopolized by the prosecutor's questions, the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat explained how he managed to multiply grandfather Florenci's inheritance: the original 140 million pesetas (0.8 million euros) turned into six million euros thanks —he repeated fifteen times— to "financial sheets", a concept he already used in 2015 when he testified in the Barcelona courts. However, eleven years ago, in the Parliament of Catalonia, the CEO of Andbank in Spain, Rafael Gascó, replied that he did not know what they were: "It is the first time I have heard the name of this instrument in 35 years of banking experience," he said. The eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat has pointed out that in twenty years he made between 20,000 and 25,000 movements.

The last time there was similar expectation in San Fernando de Henares was on November 24 last year. A crowd of journalists waited from early morning in freezing cold for the arrival of the Pujol family. It was the day that what has been dubbed the trial of the decade began, although after that day the media spotlight has not been the same. In Madrid, comments in talk shows have been minimal in recent months, and the trial has not made headlines on any other day than the first. Until this Monday, April 27, when there were more or less the same journalists again, this time suffering from the heat and with maximum expectation due to the widely misunderstood decision of the tribunal president, Ricardo de Prada, to make Jordi Pujol appear in person in the Spanish capital. "He has discovered the Mediterranean Sea," quipped a lawyer, when they decided to exclude the former president from the case due to incapacity.

Former president Jordi Pujol, as was foreseeable, has been excluded from the trial against him and his family in the National Court. The reason has been the same that at the time removed his wife from the process: the lack of mental health, declared by the forensic doctors of Barcelona. And now from Madrid. A second examination was not necessary, because they belong to the same national body. And even less necessary was an examination by judges, because they are not doctors.

After the decision to exclude President Jordi Pujol from the case, the main event at the National High Court has been the testimony of his eldest son, for whom the Prosecutor's Office is seeking 29 years in prison for five crimes. The first session lasted almost three hours, until his lawyer asked to end it upon seeing him "manifestly tired". Prosecutor Fernando Bermejo has dedicated himself to reviewing his businesses in detail, and the firstborn has defended his work tooth and nail. "What I have done is well done" and "there is nothing to hide", he claimed at two points during the interrogation.

The trial for Jordi Pujol has ended. The court has removed him from the case due to his inability to defend himself. What we advanced could happen last Wednesday has happened. They have excluded him because the man was not in condition and because, fundamentally, it was much more convenient for them to remove him from the case than to acquit him, which, judging by the trial, was going to happen. A few minutes before eleven in the morning, two hours after the former president's arrival at the Audiencia, the president of the court, José Ricardo Prada, explained it like this:Court President: “The court had a very special interest in having an interview with Mr. Jordi Pujol Soley and knowing firsthand what his personal situation was. / The conclusion that the court draws or obtains is the impossibility of Mr. Jordi Pujol Soley remaining with full knowledge and capacities in this trial. Therefore, it is agreed that from this moment on he is… I don't want to use the word ‘expelled’, but yes, effectively, he is out of the proceedings. / The decision of the chamber has depended on the medical reports that existed previously, on the forensic medical report, which had already been provided at the beginning of the hearing sessions, and on the last medical report that the forensic doctor has issued to the court. And, as I say, also on the essential personal contact, since it is the court that must make the decision and cannot defer this decision to anyone else.”In this conversation that the judge mentioned, Pujol told the doctors he wanted to testify, which is what he had to say. Pujol is not one to hide, and if they were going to remove him from the case, the judge had to do it, not for him to ask for it. But, obviously, everyone knew that Pujol was not in a condition to testify, because he gets tired quickly, he doesn't hear well, he repeats himself and makes others repeat, he is nearly 96 years old, he walks with a walker and gets up late. The questions we have been asking ourselves these days persist: if the doctors had already said he couldn't go, if to have this final conversation with Pujol it wasn't necessary to make him go to Madrid, why did they make him go?  Well, so that it wouldn't be said that he was soft, and so that… I already told you last Wednesday. I told them: “Don't think that what I'm going to say now is an exaggerated flourish. Making him go to Madrid can also have another meaning (besides the mockery): that the judge covers himself and can say that, after making him go and have him examined by the forensic doctors, they are removing him from the case. Fundamentally, it is very possible that the court deems it better to say that they cannot judge him than to have to acquit him, which, seeing how the trial has gone, would not be at all unlikely.” And so it has been. Of course, let him pay the penalty of the news first, if nothing else. President Pujol is out of the case, but the trial of his children continues. Pujol will not have an acquittal from criminal justice. He will have the judgment of history. Good morning.

Jordi Pujol i Soley has finally been excluded from the judicial case that has his family at its epicenter after fourteen years of investigation. The procedure, which began in 2012 concerning his eldest son and worsened with the confession about grandfather Florenci's inheritance in 2014, has ended in the former president's case because he is not in a condition to be tried. Too much time has passed and his cognitive abilities are no longer adequate. This has been decided by the National Court, which has communicated his exclusion from the procedure after having seen him face to face. As the doctors had already repeatedly stated, the judges have confirmed the "impossibility" of Jordi Pujol continuing as an accused with "full knowledge and capabilities".

Junts per Catalunya will accompany Jordi Pujol to San Fernando de Henares to "show him support". Next Monday, the former president of the Generalitat must go in person to the National Court so that a forensic doctor can examine him and the tribunal that is judging his family and nine businessmen can determine whether or not to keep him on the defendants' bench. If the decision is not to exempt him, he will subsequently have to testify as a defendant. Despite this, the forensic doctors said in November that "he is not in physical or cognitive condition" to be tried.

The National High Court does not want to fall into ageism –discrimination based on age– with Jordi Pujol. As the ARA has learned, this is how the president of the court judging the Pujol case, José Ricardo de Prada, argued at the start of Friday's trial session, the last one before the defendants' statements. It comes three days after it became known that the former president of the Generalitat will have to travel to Madrid on Monday for a forensic doctor to examine him and certify whether he is in a condition to continue on the defendants' bench. "The court does not want to fall into ageism," Judge Prada stated before the public session began and after one of the Pujol family's lawyers asked him to address the issue. In other words, they do not want to stop summoning him due to his advanced age. However, Jordi Pujol is not only 95 years old, but he also has markers of Alzheimer's in his blood. "I want Mr. Jordi Pujol Soley to participate in the proceedings with the certainty that he is in a condition to endure the trial," the judge added. "The court does not start from prejudice, it wants to see exactly his capabilities to determine whether he should continue or not," he concluded. Jordi Pujol's defense has opted not to file any new written submissions because they consider the decision to have been made and there is no room for modification. And they are leaning towards Jordi Pujol traveling to Madrid by car. It is not yet known for certain whether he will enter through the parking lot or not.

Nine years after testifying in the Gürtel case, Mariano Rajoy has returned to the National Court to testify in the Kitchen case. He arrived in San Fernando de Henares at 9:40 a.m. by car and accessed the judicial premises through the parking lot. He responded for thirty minutes, in a statement that began with monosyllables and evasiveness and ended with three pleas in which he distanced himself from the facts and lent a hand to the defenses of the accused. The star phrase came right at the beginning, during the interrogation by the PSOE lawyer, who asked him if he was M. Rajoy, el Asturiano, or el Barbas: "My name is Mariano Rajoy, as everyone knows, and then each person calls me what they want; ask them." After this first display, he dedicated himself to categorically denying everything. "Did you give Bárcenas an envelope with the remainder of the B fund? Did you put the last page of Bárcenas's papers into the shredder? Do you have knowledge that Bárcenas was pressured or intimidated by order of party officials?", asked the PSOE lawyer. These are three questions that the former PP treasurer assured on Monday when he testified as a witness. "Absolutely false", Rajoy limited himself to answering on all three occasions.

Jordi Pujol i Soley will have to go personally to Madrid next Monday for a forensic doctor to examine him. If he gives the green light, Pujol will have to testify as a defendant in the trial against his family and several businessmen that has been taking place at the National Court for five months. In November, when the trial began, five forensic experts said he "is not in physical or cognitive condition" to be tried. Five months have passed and here we are again, the court wants to re-examine Pujol.Today the children are meeting with their lawyer, Cristóbal Martell, but there is nothing to be done to prevent the trip. In terms of cognitive abilities, Jordi Pujol is more or less the same as in November, although in an obvious process of regression. Consider that at the beginning of June, less than two months from now, he will be 96 years old. Apparently, Pujol does not understand why he was able to testify from home, remotely, when the trial began, and yet now they are making him go, even though, however old he may be, he understands that the images of him heading towards the Court and on the defendants' bench are very tempting.The question remains: why don't they want Pujol to testify telematically now? Why don't they trust what the forensic experts said in November? Because since November, Pujol may not have worsened, but he certainly hasn't improved. And why don't they send the forensic experts to Barcelona and examine him here? President Puigdemont yesterday cried out: “They can’t be more miserable”, he denounces. He believes that the National Court is seeking “scorn” and a photo to “humiliate not only a person, but above all what he represents”, and says that if it weren’t for his condition as an exile, he would have accompanied Pujol to Madrid “with great pleasure”. It is true that we saw Pujol not many weeks ago going to vote in the elections of Barça. And that he attends public events. But let's not be mistaken. One thing is to go to vote, which only requires a physical effort, and another is to sit in a trial in which you are accused and they ask for prison for you, and in which you have to defend yourself. Everyone who has spoken to Pujol says that he doesn't hear, that he makes them repeat the questions and that he asks you again something that you have only just answered him a moment ago.If we talk about justice, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is asking for nine years in prison for the former Catalan president for the crimes of illicit association and money laundering. But you know what happens? That over thirty sessions, with 95% of the trial held, with expert and face-to-face testimonies, the former president's name has practically not even been mentioned. Therefore, and do not think that what I am about to say is an exaggerated pirouette, sending him to Madrid may also have another meaning (in addition to the mockery): that the judge may cover himself, may say that, after having him go there and have him examined by forensic experts, they are removing him from the case. In essence, it is quite possible that the court would prefer to say that they cannot judge him rather than having to acquit him, which, seeing how the trial has gone, would not be at all unlikely.Good morning.