In the coming weeks, 34 Supreme Court magistrates will decide whether anyone can judicially intervene against the decision of an adult person who has medical approval to receive euthanasia. The Prosecutor's Office has already conveyed its position to the court: it believes that close family can do so as long as they have an "intense bond" with the affected person, not just a biological relationship. The response that the full Supreme Court eventually gives will set a precedent in a debate that has been open in the courts for a few months and has gained prominence especially with the case of Noelia Castillo, the young woman from Garraf who received assisted death at the end of March, after 20 months of judicial proceedings. The case that the Supreme Court will hear is another, that of Francesc: a 55-year-old man who, after three strokes and a heart attack, suffers serious sequelae in his mobility and speech. Since July 2024, his euthanasia has had judicial approval as well as medical approval and that of the Commission of Guarantee and Evaluation of Catalonia (CGAC), but it has been stalled by a judicial appeal from his father. In fact, his case is what motivated the resolution of the Superior Court of Justice (TSJC) in which the magistrates validated that a family can take an euthanasia approved by doctors to court. The Generalitat, which represents Francesc's interests, appealed against this resolution of the TSJC and, therefore, the Supreme Court will now review it after evaluating the arguments of the administration and those of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

The Barcelona Prosecutor's Office has closed the torture investigation to the activist and philologist Blanca Serra, the first victim who went directly to the Prosecutor's Office for Historical Memory and not to the courtsThus, she is recognized as a victim of Francoism, and this is done for the first time based on the 2022 Democratic Memory Law. Blanca Serra and her sister, the historian Eva Serra – who died in 2018 – were detained at the Via La7 police station in 1982. The investigation concludes that during their arrest in February 1977, they suffered "torture perpetrated in a context of crimes against humanity." The Public Prosecutor's Office adds that the Political-Social Brigade arrested them solely for their political activity opposing the dictatorship and that they "inflicted physical and psychological violence on them to obtain information and a confession, which caused them traumatic aftereffects." All of this occurred within a context of persecution and political repression established by Francoism, the Public Prosecutor's Office adds in a statement.

The Barcelona Prosecutor's Office has launched a specialized vulnerability unit, the first of its kind in Spain. Five prosecutors will handle cases where the victims are minors or vulnerable for other reasons, interpreting this concept broadly: they will address cases affecting children, the elderly, or people with disabilities, but also those involving "situational vulnerability," such as power imbalances or victims of serious crimes like sexual assault. The focus will be on preventing the revictimization of those affected.

Pedro Sánchez is not backing down and is taking another step in the crusade against Big Tech. The Spanish government on Tuesday asked the Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate X, Meta (which includes Facebook and Instagram), and TikTok for the sexual violence crimes they may be committing in the creation and distribution of child pornography using their artificial intelligence (AI) tools. "These platforms are threatening the mental health, dignity, and rights of our sons and daughters. The State cannot allow this. The impunity of these giants must end," Sánchez himself stated early in the morning in a message published on X.

About two years ago, prosecutors and notaries began working on a protocol to alert the public to potential scams targeting the elderly. The project stalled, but has now been relaunched with improved prospects for success, as explained this Thursday by Barcelona's chief prosecutor, Neus Pujal. Beside her, the delegated prosecutor for victim protection, Silvia Armero, noted that cases of financial abuse and exploitation could be detected even if the only red flags considered were when someone else gives instructions to the signatory and when "absolutely ruinous powers of attorney" are authorized, leaving the person financially vulnerable. "Notaries sometimes say, 'If I think they are capable or lucid and want to grant the power of attorney, even if it's a ruinous power of attorney, let's grant it,' but we say 'no,'" warns Barcelona's chief prosecutor, Neus Pujal. "If it's an elderly person, if there are indications that they are not acting freely or that their capacity is not fully developed, they cannot authorize that power of attorney," he adds. Pujal acknowledges the difficulty notaries face when deciding whether a person has sufficient cognitive capacity to sign a power of attorney or a will, for example, without a forensic doctor to advise them directly at the notary's office. However, the protocol being developed by the State Attorney General's Office and the General Council of Notaries will establish "basic indicators" that can guide them in their decision. Prosecutor Sílvia Armero detailed examples that may raise suspicions, such as a person who speaks very little or who comes with a relative who speaks on their behalf. Also, when a transaction is proposed that "no one in their right mind" would want to make due to the financial harm it would cause. The protocol for prosecutors and notaries, which is still being finalized and will be applied throughout the country, must include the measures to be taken if a notary fails to exercise these precautions. Pujal believes the logical course of action would be to inform the Notary Association in his area, and that there could be consequences, such as disciplinary proceedings, when it becomes clear that the evidence has been ignored. In fact, just a few weeks ago, the Public Prosecutor's Office already asked the notaries "Exercise extreme caution" in the face of the increase in scams and cases of financial abuse against the elderlyIn cases of suspicion, the public prosecutor's office asks notaries to halt all transactions and report the case. The prosecutor's office also works in coordination with banks, and Armero says that in some cases the banks themselves have alerted the public prosecutor's office and stopped suspicious transactions. Specifically, he explained the case of an elderly person who went to the bank every day with their caregiver to withdraw amounts of between 1,000 and 2,000 euros, until they had withdrawn a total of more than 100,000 euros.

The Public Prosecutor's Office has asked the Barcelona Provincial Court to sentence a basketball coach from the Catholic Center of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat to 43 and a half years in prison, accusing him of sexually assaulting three of his players, aged between 14 and 15, when he was 20 years old. They are also seeking a ban on working with minors. The prosecution's indictment dates back to the 2017-2018 season. The coach was well-regarded and had a close relationship with the players on his team, the prosecution explains. During Holy Week in 2018, the entire team spent several days in Coma-ruga, in El Vendrell, to play in a tournament. The prosecution alleges that the first assault occurred on the last night the team stayed at a hotel in the town. According to the prosecutor, that night the coach sent a WhatsApp He approached one of the teenagers and told her to go to his room. There, he offered her rum and cola, and the young woman fell into a "semi-conscious state that prevented her from remembering almost anything until the following morning." During the night, the prosecution alleges, the coach took advantage of the girl's intoxication to have sex with her until she fell asleep. In the morning, she was dizzy and had difficulty walking, and he told her to go back to his room and not to tell anyone what had happened.

The Spanish government wants the Public Prosecutor's Office to clarify whether the artificial intelligence (AI) of X is committing crimes related to the distribution of child pornography and sexual violence against children. This AI, Grok, has produced images of a sexual nature and violence against children at the request of platform users. Therefore, the Ministry of Youth and Children has asked the State Attorney General's Office to investigate whether this could constitute a crime of child pornography. In any case, the ministry considers that these images created by the AI at the request of users represent "a practice that cannot be understood as a neutral use of technology." The ministry, headed by Minister Sira Rego, believes that all of this could constitute a crime of child pornography and a crime against moral integrity. "It is essential that the Public Prosecutor's Office analyze these extremely serious events and promote the necessary actions to guarantee the protection of children online as well," stated the minister, who criticized the "violation of fundamental rights" in the dissemination of these images. The letter that Minister Sira Rego has sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office also recalls the precedent of a sentence handed down last June by a juvenile court in Badajoz, which convicted several people for manipulating images of girls and teenagers with AI. Protecting children on the internet

Furthermore, the ministry noted that Congress is currently processing the organic law for the protection of minors in digital environments, with the aim of strengthening the dignity, safety, and rights of children in the digital space. The law seeks to protect their integrity and personal privacy against new risks related to the use of technologies such as AI, always prioritizing the best interests of the child. According to the ministry, this initiative is part of a strategy to create safe digital environments, recognizing that the internet and digital platforms were not designed with children in mind and that it is essential to ensure that minors can develop without violence, undue exposure, pedophilia, and exploitation.

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The first-ever count by the Prosecutor's Office on school bullying has clearly shown that last year there were 1,196 serious cases of bullying in the State. At least these are the cases that reached the public prosecutor's office. It's not yet possible to compare the statistical evolution this data represents because it's the only annual report so far, but these cases don't include all those that never reach the courts. The difficulties and reluctance to report behaviors that affect minors—and which very often involve other minors under 14 years old, who therefore cannot be prosecuted—mean that many cases simply end with a change of school. Recently, cases of teenage suicides have come to light in different parts of the State, where those around them have pointed to bullying as the trigger. This is the case of Sandra Peña, a 9th-grade girl from Seville who took her own life last October, and of two young women from Jaén who committed suicide together in a park. In Catalonia, police are investigating the death of a 15-year-old boy in Lleida, and two years ago, 12-year-old twins attempted suicide in Sallent. The boy died, and the girl was seriously injured. In all these cases, those close to the victims mention bullying as a trigger, but the difficulty in clarifying the motive behind a suicide—which is always multifactorial—makes it difficult to predict or know the full extent of the consequences of bullying, whether in the classroom or on social media. In fact, according to a 2023 Save the Children study, 42% of young Catalans—the equivalent of 10 students in a class of 25—have suffered cyberbullying during childhood. Currently, school bullying is not specifically defined as a crime in the Penal Code, despite... the repeated requests that have been made for it to be classified as a crimeThe majority of convictions for serious cases of bullying These actions are carried out under the protection of Article 173 of this law, which punishes degrading treatment and is part of the chapter dedicated to torture and crimes against moral integrity. "Although there is no specific crime, it can still be punished, but we consider this insufficient," says lawyer Noelia Rebón, who specializes in bullying and children's rights. In their opinion, the ideal solution would be to specify school bullying within the same law in order to penalize serious cases, as has already been done with workplace or housing harassment, which have a specific mention within the same crime of degrading treatment.

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Actress Elisa Mouliáa has denounced the Prosecutor's Office's decision not to charge former Sumar spokesperson Íñigo Errejón with sexual assault and to request the dismissal of the case, as reported by The Spanish And legal sources confirmed to ARA. "For a non-consensual kiss (the Rubiales case), the Prosecutor's Office came forward with strong charges," he criticized, referring to Jennifer Hermoso.

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Almost every week, the Public Prosecutor's Office receives a case of a person with cognitive impairment who has gone to the bank or notary's office to carry out an important procedure accompanied by another person, usually a family member or someone from their social circle, without being fully aware of what they were doing. These suspicions of financial abuse typically reach the desk of Antoni Torres, the prosecutor in charge of protecting the elderly and people with disabilities in Barcelona, ​​following alerts from social services or nursing home staff. In contrast, it is much less common for these cases to originate from the banks themselves—there is an agreement in place, but the fact that an alert is received still raises "surprise" for the Public Prosecutor's Office—or from notaries' offices. According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, only two cases have been reported through notaries' offices in the entire Barcelona area in the last two years.

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Carlos Castresana has just published Under the Gowns (Tusquets, 2025) on judicial errors throughout five centuries of history. This career prosecutor, since 1989, has been a member of the Anti-Drug Prosecutor's Office and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court and is currently a prosecutor at the Court of Auditors. His career is notable for having authored the complaints that led to the prosecution of Generals Pinochet and Videla.

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A former senior executive at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office alleging the theft of approximately €20 million in public contracts from the institution that leads the fight against cancer in Spain and holds one of the most prestigious scientific accreditations, that of the Centre for Excellence. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is currently reviewing the complaint and has not yet opened an investigation, according to the newspaper. The World And sources from the public prosecutor's office confirmed this to EFE on Monday.

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The Public Prosecutor's Office has asked the Catalan government to sanction the company that managed the rental of substandard housing built on the site of a former shop and warehouse in Badalona. These were 18 units of approximately 15 square meters each, located on a basement level, lacking ventilation and with faulty electrical wiring that endangered the families living there, who paid between 350 and 650 euros per month. Between 25 and 30 people lived there, including children. The Badalona City Council closed these substandard dwellings at the end of October last year, and at that time the mayor, Xavier García Albiol, assured that the council would be "implacable" with the owner and the real estate agency that managed the rentals and announced administrative fines that could reach €1,000. However, the Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed that no legal action was taken against the company that had allowed the rentals, explained prosecutor Paloma Pelegrín, who heads the Barcelona district's consumer rights service, during a meeting with journalists this week. The Public Prosecutor's Office's first move was to send its findings to the Catalan Consumer Agency, but the agency responded that the case was not under its jurisdiction, but rather that of the Housing Department. The Public Prosecutor's Office made contact two weeks ago because it believes it is "the body that should carry out the inspection and sanctioning" and is awaiting the administration's actions, Pelegrín added.

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A message occupying the entire homepage of the website explains that the law prohibits publishing "content related to this assisted reproduction technique," but adds that the company will continue offering its services. Below this are an email address and two phone numbers for booking a surrogacy arrangement. Paloma Pelegrín, the prosecutor who leads the Barcelona consumer rights service, laments that, despite the law prohibiting surrogacy companies from advertising, the internet remains rife with such content. However, for the first time, the Public Prosecutor's Office has succeeded in shutting down some of these websites. In Barcelona, between the end of 2024 and the first quarter of this year, two cases were resolved after a lawsuit for illegal advertising and mediation with the companies involved, which ultimately agreed to close their websites. In Madrid, a conviction has already been handed down against the company SurroBaby for unfair and illegal advertising on its website and social media. There is also a second lawsuit pending in the Madrid courts. While the proceedings are underway, the court has issued a precautionary order blocking the website, but the prosecutor admits that the order "has not been very effective."

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The Public Prosecutor's Office of Castile and León will finally investigate the controversial handling of the August wildfires by Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, following a complaint filed by the Bierzo Aire Limpio (Clean Air Bierzo) Association against the president of the Castile and León regional government and his Minister of the Environment, Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones. According to the document obtained by the EFE news agency, the Prosecutor's Office opened the investigation into alleged crimes of malfeasance by omission, environmental offenses, failure to provide assistance, and other offenses related to the inaction and deficient performance of the regional administration. "The regional government had all the information to anticipate the situation, but chose not to reinforce the operation, despite past experience," the association points out, also noting that after previous disasters (such as the 2022 fires), the firefighting operation was not reinforced, nor were resources allocated to fighting the fires increased. Regional Minister Suárez-Quiñones, for his part, recalled that several complaints were also filed after the 2022 fires, but they were dismissed. In fact, he asserted that after those fires, "very strong" decisions were made regarding investment and operations, but that this year's fires occurred under "unknown circumstances." "We will provide all the necessary explanations," he added.

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The Seville Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into the complaint filed by patients this week who reported that some medical records related to mammograms and ultrasounds used to detect breast cancer had been deleted or altered. The investigation opened this Friday follows the one opened on Thursday by the Andalusian High Prosecutor's Office to investigate errors in the early detection program for the disease.

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The Andalusian Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into the complaints it has received regarding errors in the early detection program for breast cancer. The first step was to request a report from the Andalusian Regional Government's Ministry of Health, which also demands an explanation of the measures it has taken "to compensate the victims and prevent future similar incidents." The Public Prosecutor's Office's decision comes in a week in which the crisis surrounding breast cancer screening has further fueled political debate in Andalusia. In fact, women and the opposition are criticizing the Andalusian government for manipulating some mammograms that appear on platforms accessible to both patients and professionals.

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Pedro Sánchez is the one who allegedly gave the order to dig up dirt within the Civil Guard and the Prosecutor's Office. Specifically, dirt on those investigating cases surrounding the Spanish president. This is what he conveys to prosecutor Ignacio Stampa in the complaint he filed against former PSOE member Leire Díez and businessman Javier Pérez Dolset, with whom he met on May 7, for alleged bribery. These two individuals allegedly asked him for information about irregularities by Anti-Corruption prosecutors in a meeting that, initially, was intended to convey an apology from the Spanish government for his "unfair" departure from the Public Prosecutor's Office.

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The Prosecutor's Office has asked the Court of Auditors to open an investigation into the scandal of the extinct General Directorate of Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA). The objective, as has been advanced The National and sources from the Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed to ARA, is to clarify whether the agency dependent on the Department of Social Rights incurred "possible accounting liability" for irregularities in the payment of economic and housing benefits to young people who were formerly in care. All this, after the Audit Office detected more than 167 million unduly paid in the set of benefits between 2016 and 2022. Of these, 4.7 million corresponded to the undue benefits for young people who were formerly in care, which the Government has approved condone This Tuesday, a decision agreed upon between the PSC, ERC, and Comuns.

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The Prosecutor's Office is calling for the "alarming" increase in drug trafficking in the Barcelona area. Last year, there were 71.49% more drug trafficking cases than in 2023, and those related to hard drugs grew the most. The number of legal proceedings rose from 4,234 in 2023 to 7,261 in 2024, a figure that places Barcelona as the province with the most cases in the entire state and almost double that of Madrid, which accumulated 3,891 last year.

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