José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will testify as an investigated party before the National Court two weeks later than planned. Judge José Luis Calama has accepted the former Spanish president's defense's request for an adjournment and summons him for June 17 and 18. Initially, he was scheduled for next week, Tuesday the 2nd. In an order, Calama deems it appropriate to postpone the declaration due to the complexity of the case, as requested by the former socialist leader's lawyer, Víctor Moreno Catena, since he did not have access to it until this Monday. In parallel, the former PSOE leader has already begun to publicly defend himself against the accusations.

Along with the news about the case opened at the National High Court, these days it has been impossible for me not to remember the close relationship I had with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero a quarter of a century ago, when he decided to run as a candidate for the general secretary of the PSOE. It was June 2000, and that 40-year-old, almost unknown deputy did not have all the guarantees that he would win. Indirectly, he received the help of Alfonso Guerra, who promoted the presentation of the former minister Matilde Fernández to divide the vote and make it difficult for José Bono, former president of Castilla-La Mancha, to win. The fourth candidate was Rosa Díez, who would later found another party, now defunct: Unión, Progreso y Democracia (UPyD).

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.