Almost every week a new indictment appears related – more directly or indirectly – to the PSOE. The latest name to emerge is Juan Manuel Serrano, who was president of Correos from 2018 to 2023 and director of Pedro Sánchez's cabinet at Ferraz. His name joins a long list of people – with different levels of responsibility – allegedly involved in fourteen open lines of investigation. The first convicted person was the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, but there are a total of 50 officials related to the Spanish government or the PSOE, members of the Civil Guard, and men who were of Sánchez's utmost confidence who have ended up before a judge. That's up to 109 if we also count the 59 businessmen, family members, and lawyers – and other profiles – indicted in the different open cases.

One year later, the long-awaited financial report from the Central Operative Unit (UCO) on Santos Cerdán has arrived. These are the Guardia Civil's conclusions: firstly, investigators have found €18,260 in cash income with an “apparently unknown origin” between 2014 and 2017, when he was a deputy in the Parliament of Navarre and Mariano Rajoy was still in Moncloa. Secondly, they have detected a “reduction in expenses” via card and cash withdrawals from 2019 onwards, in a period that “temporally coincides” with José Luis Ábalos's tenure as minister and the awarding of contracts to Acciona for the cases under suspicion. Thirdly, the settlements of advance payments from the PSOE and Congress were “higher” than the expenses they observed to be “susceptible” to claims. In total, they have analyzed €1.1 million in income and expenses from 2014 to 2025.

The Director General of the Civil Guard has returned to the National Court to testify as an investigated party for prevarication and obstruction of justice within the framework of the Leire Díez case. Her name surfaced after the Central Operative Unit (UCO) discovered that she had met with the person known as the PSOE's "plumber", even though she has distanced herself from the alleged plot to torpedo judicial investigations from the outset. According to what ARA has been able to ascertain, she stated before the judge that she is a "victim" of Santos Cerdán, who was the party's number three and with whom she "never" had a "good relationship," and assured that if she had known that Leire Díez was coming on his behalf, she would have refused to receive her. She added that she saw "nothing suspicious" in the contacts with her and that they never spoke about internal investigations within the Civil Guard.

No pressure or orders not to investigate Pedro Sánchez's circle. The Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the Civil Guard, who is being investigated for prevarication and obstruction of justice within the Leire Díez case, has defended himself before Judge Santiago Pedraz. The former head of the Central Operative Unit (UCO), Rafael Yuste, assured that in July 2024 he urged agents to "step aside" in judicial cases with political implications and urged them not to be proactive and to cede the lead in driving cases to the judges. Manuel Llamas has been testifying for over two hours and has denied any maneuver to torpedo or obstruct investigations: he assured that at no time did he say they should step aside and denied any kind of pressure.

The figure of 46,000 tons of waste from France illegally dumped in Catalonia that came to light this Monday could end up being anecdotal compared to the total number of kilos of garbage that could be revealed when the investigation is over, according to sources close to the case. The dumpings of the so-called Franger case, which the Guardia Civil has explained so far, mainly affected the municipality of Sant Esteve Sesrovires, in Baix Llobregat. However, sources close to the investigation consulted by ARA add Rubí (Vallès Occidental), Riba-roja d'Ebre (Ribera d'Ebre), and Pujalt (Anoia) to the provisional list of affected municipalities.

On a roundabout on the N-340 road, considered the longest in all of Spain, there is a dilapidated and burnt-out restaurant. It is in the municipality of Los Gallardos, in the province of Almeria. This Saturday, early in the morning, agents from the Civil Guard and the Environment Department of the Junta de Andalucía are analyzing the surroundings of this building, which was already abandoned before the fire hit it. They explain that this is the exact spot where the tragic fire began. And how did it start? They respond that everything points to a spark from electrical wiring, even though the restaurant in question had been closed for years.

It is the turn of the former Minister of Health Alba Vergés to explain herself at the trial for the vaccination against covid of the National Police and Civil Guard officers stationed in Catalonia. In her statement, she focused on explaining that they always followed the criteria set by the Interterritorial Council of Health on the vaccination strategy, even when it was decided to prioritize AstraZeneca doses for people between 55 and 65 years old. This, she clarified, did not prevent essential worker groups – such as police officers, healthcare personnel, or teachers – from continuing to receive doses, but it had to be done "as vaccines became available." In fact, when directly asked, she denied giving any order to delay vaccination for the officers.

The former Minister of Health, Josep Maria Argimon, testified early in the trial for the COVID vaccination of national police and civil guards stationed in Catalonia. The then director of the Catalan Health Institute and Secretary of Public Health assured that the decision to limit the AstraZeneca vaccine to the 60 to 65 age group – whether or not they were essential workers – was a decision of the Interterritorial Health Council and "did not pose any ethical conflict" nor in the epidemiological field, because it prioritized people most vulnerable to the virus. Nevertheless, he was in favor of continuing to vaccinate all officers, because the logistics were already in place, and he communicated this to the minister Alba Vergés.

New round of witnesses in the trial for allegedly "discriminating" against national police and civil guards with covid vaccines. After the commanders of both forces cleared the defendants, among whom are former ministers Josep Maria Argimon and Alba Vergés, this Monday it was the turn of other former Health directors to explain themselves. Among them, Vergés's advisor who sent a key message in the investigation of the case, in which she said: "Once again, the minister asks to stop Civil Guard and National Police. We cannot justify it. We should stop it".

The National Court has indicted the director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, in the Leire Díez case and summoned her to testify on July 16. She is not the only official of the armed institute that the court considers under suspicion: it is also investigating the operational deputy director (DAO) of the corps, Manuel Llamas, for Díez's alleged maneuvers to halt investigations affecting those close to Spanish President Pedro Sánchez. Specifically, Judge Santiago Pedraz, who made this decision after the request from the Public Prosecutor's Office and popular accusers led by the PP, believes they may have committed crimes of prevarication and obstruction of justice.

The testimony of those responsible for the covid vaccination of National Police and Civil Guard agents in Catalonia has been a cold shower for police unions that accuse former heads of the Health department of having "discriminated" against them compared to the Mossos d'Esquadra. The second day of the trial of former councilors Alba Vergés and Josep Maria Argimon focused on the statements of the commanders of these two forces who organized the vaccination of their agents stationed in Catalonia, and both stressed that they spoke daily with their interlocutor at Health, Xavier Rodríguez Guasch, about whom they said he always had a good disposition for coordination.

The trial of former health department officials for "discriminating" against police officers and civil guards in the COVID vaccination campaign will not end with prison sentences. At the start of the trial this Tuesday, the Barcelona Court has excluded from the case the crime against workers' rights that the unions were pursuing and which could have led to sentences of up to three years in prison. The Prosecutor's Office requests the disqualification for 12 years of those who led the ministry at the time and accuses them, like the police unions, of having "paralyzed" the vaccination of these agents and not prioritizing them over the general population, as they did with other emergency services. Among the figures provided by the accusers is the vaccination rate of the agents: at a time when the vaccination rate was 2.8% among civil guards and 3.6% among national police officers, it reached 77% among the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Barcelona Municipal Police.

"Never ever". And so on, and so on. The Director General of the Civil Guard, who appears splashed in the Leire Díez case summary, has flatly and unequivocally denied that she intervened in any way in maneuvers to "obstruct" judicial proceedings being investigated by the National Court. "I have never participated in any plot or conspiracy against the UCO, I have never participated in any smear campaign against the UCO, and I have never taken any measure against any UCO agent," Mercedes González proclaimed vehemently as soon as her appearance began before the Senate Interior Committee, convened by the PP's absolute majority. "I have never persecuted my own because they are my family," she added later. "I am not involved in any sewer," she even said. To defend herself, she boasted that there had been "no complaint" from UCO agents who felt threatened or coerced, and after two and a half hours, she concluded her statement with a proclamation: "Every day I have to tell myself that I have done nothing wrong. Meanwhile, the fury eager to achieve destruction and desolation will roar.

Firefighters are working with the hypothesis that the sixteen-year-old adolescent disappeared in Roses (Alt Empordà) while riding a jet ski would have lost his vest at some point and sunk. Now, rescue efforts are focused on tracing the coast along the southern part of Roses, up to Begur and Palamós. Drones have also been flown over the Medes Islands and GRAE divers are making dives between two and four meters, taking advantage of the "acceptable" visibility in the area. Firefighters plan to trace the coast by helicopter this Saturday from Roses to Begur before suspending the search for the young man. This Friday's search will stop when night falls and will resume tomorrow morning.

The director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, met with Leire Díez, the main suspect in the latest judicial case affecting the PSOE, even though until now both she and the Spanish government had denied it both in writing – in response to parliamentary questions from the PP – and orally: last week the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, reiterated it, stating that "the director of the Civil Guard has not had any meeting with anyone [...] Not with Leire nor with anyone else". This account changed this Thursday, once the summary of the case being investigated by the National High Court became known. In a statement this Thursday evening, the Civil Guard itself acknowledges at least two meetings —it does not rule out a third— and assures that González cut off the relationship as soon as Díez asked her to reinstate Commander Rubén Villalba, who was removed from the force for being involved in a judicial proceeding.

Episodes of police brutality, like the one that occurred last weekend in Valencia, when a police officer attacked a protester without reason and from behind at the teachers' assemblies, always constitute a direct attack on the foundations of democracy. Since the so-called state security forces and bodies are delegated the management of violence (they are the only ones who can carry weapons, and use them, in public spaces), when one or more police officers turn against citizens and use force against them, the act causes consternation and repulsion. The use of force is only justified in very specific cases, which are legislated, and none include repression against people exercising their right to demonstrate and protest.Scenes like that of the retired teacher who is pushed face down to the ground by a national policeman are intolerable. The images are unequivocal, so the reaction should also be: swift expulsion from the force for this officer, in addition to any criminal responsibilities they may incur for the assault on their victim. Instead, however, as always happens when something of this nature occurs (I mean: every time a policeman assaults a person suspected of not being a good Spanish patriot, according to the well-known parameters of Spanish ultranationalism), a swarm of politicians and journalists suddenly appears to cover for the policeman in question and to twist reality. It doesn't matter that it's recorded by a lot of cameras and that everyone has seen it: the denial machine kicks in and quickly twists reality, in order to present the victim as the aggressor and the aggressor policeman as an exemplary servant of public order (and as a victim, if necessary). A protester who receives a brutal push when she is with her back to her aggressor, when she was doing nothing remotely punishable and who obviously cannot defend herself from an armed and uniformed policeman, becomes in a certain official version a “element of tension” or an “alterer of social peace”. This is what has been done by the president of the Valencian Generalitat, the very unworthy Juanfran Pérez Llorca, and a long list of usual mariachis from the press close to the PP and Vox. The abusive policeman (who, incidentally, the first thing that should be done to him is a drug and alcohol test), on the other hand, becomes little less than a hero.Or a hero without palliative care: the police officers of 1-O were decorated, and a few dozen paraded through the trial of the Procés to give easily verifiable false testimony about the events of September 20 and October 1, 2017. The Altsasu police officers involved in a bar brawl were exalted as victims of terrorism, while eight young people were sentenced to high prison terms for terrorism offenses. This, to mention just two recent cases that many of us remember. Abuse of authority is, for certain defenders of the homeland, a way of winning ten to zero.

If they wanted a marijuana plantation, they provided all the necessary material. Lighting, ventilation, irrigation systems, fertilization... They even brought it wherever it was needed. They operated like a cannabis supermarket. Apparently, they sold grow shop products, intended for personal consumption, but in reality, as an investigation by the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Guardia Civil has been able to confirm, they supplied plantations controlled by large marijuana cartels. These are individuals of Spanish nationality who have appeared in many investigations in recent years against Albanian cannabis clans – although none of them had prior records – and, finally, the police have been able to link their role: they facilitated infrastructure and money laundering.

They are investigating the discovery of the lifeless bodies of a Civil Guard agent, his wife, 55, and his 24-year-old son in Dolores, Alicante, as a possible case of gender-based violence. Sources close to the case have indicated to Efe that the investigation points to the Civil Guard agent, who has no prior record of gender-based violence, having murdered both his wife and son before committing suicide.

For months, a week in June has been circled in red in Madrid: from the 6th to the 12th. It is an event that is on the social but also political agenda, to the point that it is speculated that Juanma Moreno Bonilla decided to move forward the Andalusian elections so as not to coincide with the election campaign. It is about the visit of Pope Leo XIV to the State, where he will stop in Madrid, Barcelona, and the Canary Islands. This Monday, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaska, presided over the general meeting of the security device in Madrid, in which the director of the police, Josep Lluís Trapero, also participated. As the minister explained in statements to the media, collected by the ACN, the visit will involve the deployment of 11,000 national police officers, in addition to 2,200 Civil Guard agents. In a few hours, the Mossos d'Esquadra have also committed to reporting on their device. Taking into account the context in which the pontiff's trip is taking place, Marlaska asserted that it involves

Months ago, a week in June was marked in red in Madrid: from the 6th to the 12th. It is an event that is on the social agenda, but also political, to the point that it is speculated that Juanma Moreno Bonilla decided to advance the Andalusian elections so that the electoral campaign would not coincide. It is about the visit of Pope Leo XIV to the State, where he will make a stop in Madrid, Barcelona, and the Canary Islands. This Monday, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, presided over the general meeting of the security device in Madrid, in which the director of the police, Josep Lluís Trapero, also participated.