The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has expanded the complaint of prevarication against Judge Juan Carlos Peinado, who is investigating the trial of his wife, Begoña Gómez, for corruption and influence peddling, alleging that the work of the magistrate “contravenes the doctrine” and that it represents an “intrinsic injustice.”
According to information gathered by Europa Press and which ABC was able to confirm with sources from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, this body presented last Thursday, on behalf of the President of the Government, a letter before the High Court of Justice of Madrid in which it requested the extension of the complaint for embezzlement filed at the end of July.
The reaction of the leader of the Executive comes after on August 22, Judge Peinado, president of the Court of Instruction number 41 of Madrid, agreed that the parties appearing in the case in which he is investigating Begoña Gómez, wife of the president of the Executive Government, could access the video of the statement of Pedro Sánchez as a witness, which took place at the Moncloa Palace on July 30.
It was on that day in July that Sánchez took advantage of his right not to testify before the judge investigating his wife for alleged crimes of influence peddling and commercial corruption. Specifically, he took advantage of Article 416 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (LECrim), which states that as the spouse of the person under investigation, he is “exempt from the obligation to testify.”
Judge Peinado rejected the prosecution’s request not to give the parties – including Manos Liminas and Vox – access to the president’s recorded statement, finding that the recording “has no utility, material or procedural.”
“In order to avoid leaks and improper disclosure, we understand that the delivery of a copy of the mentioned recording to the parties should not take place,” the prosecutor then said.
Likewise, the magistrate stated in his letter that “conclusions” could be drawn from Sánchez’s “silence.”
Faced with this carousel of events, the Prosecutor’s Office has delved into the document presented this week that “what is really sought with these actions in everything that concerns the Presidency of the Government is to give it a publicity that is precisely incompatible with the decision-making – “making a regime.” statement in these cases and not the effectiveness of the procedure or any investigation, starting from deductions where there can be none or making forced or artificial interpretations of legal precepts or procedural principles.
