The trial of Spain’s attorney general for allegedly leaking confidential legal information against the conservative opposition wrapped up Thursday, with public prosecutors calling for his acquittal.
The case against Álvaro García Ortiz, the first serving attorney general to face trial in Spanish history, is one of several legal affairs embarrassing Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s minority government.
García Ortiz is accused of leaking case files about Alberto González Amador, a businessman under investigation for alleged tax fraud, and is the partner of the Madrid region’s influential right-wing leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Her conservative Popular Party (PP) has accused García Ortiz — appointed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist government in 2022 — of organising the leak to damage Ayuso, a darling of the Spanish right who has at times been tipped for a national leadership role.
In 2024, media reported that González Amador had proposed a plea deal with the public prosecutor’s office in which he would admit to alleged tax offences in exchange for avoiding a trial and jail.
García Ortiz’s legal team has presented him as the victim of a campaign by the Madrid region’s government to distract attention from González Amador’s legal woes and protect Ayuso.
In closing arguments before the Supreme Court in Madrid, García Ortiz’s lawyer Jose Ignacio Ocio said “nothing proves that the email” cited in the 2024 media reports was sent on the orders of the attorney general.
He also denounced what he described as “a parallel trial” taking place in “an extraordinary media environment” which he said had “created a climate hostile to the presumption of innocence” for his client.
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‘Publicly killed me’
Public prosecutor Maria Angeles Sánchez Conde also requested García Ortiz’s acquittal, saying he had “committed no wrongdoing” against González Amador.
The Supreme Court began investigating García Ortiz following a complaint by González Amador, who is accused of defrauding €350,000 (around $400,000) from the treasury in 2020 and 2021 as his health company’s earnings soared during the Covid-19 pandemic.
González Amador told the trial he wanted to reach an agreement with the prosecutor’s office “quickly and quietly” to avoid harming Ayuso.
“With the publication of the email, I became the confessed criminal of the Kingdom of Spain! I was dead!” González Amador said last week.
García Ortiz “had publicly killed me. He had completely destroyed me,” he added.
González Amador is demanding four years in jail for García Ortiz and €300,000 for “the moral damage caused”.
González Amador’s lawyer Gabriel Rodriguez-Ramos earlier on Thursday accused the leftist national government of turning his client into a “political pawn”.
González Amador is still facing trial for the alleged tax fraud.
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‘Smear campaign’
García Ortiz denied leaking the mail when he took the stand on Wednesday, and several journalists who had access to the details of the proposed plea deal told the court they did not get it from him.
If convicted, García Ortiz faces up to six years in prison and a ban on practising law.
The court is expected to deliver its verdict before the end of the year.
Separate corruption investigations targeting the prime minister’s wife, brother and two former Socialist heavyweights have threatened to topple Sánchez, who came to power in 2018 promising to clean up Spanish politics.
The PP has repeatedly called for Sánchez’s resignation and a snap general election, accusing his minority government of widespread corruption.
Sánchez has said the graft allegations against his wife and brother are part of a “smear campaign” set in motion by the right.
He told a Senate committee last month that Socialist party funding was “absolutely clean”.
