Overview
- Anti-corruption prosecutors have requested a 24-year prison term for former minister José Luis Ábalos, who is due before the Supreme Court and could be ordered into preventive detention.
- Ábalos asserted that a 2018 meeting involving Pedro Sánchez, Santos Cerdán and Arnaldo Otegi “existed,” a claim both Sánchez and Otegi have publicly denied.
- The Partido Popular portrays Ábalos’s message as a possible prelude to cooperating with justice, while government sources say they expect him to relinquish his seat if he is jailed.
- Pedro Sánchez defended his choice of Teresa Peramato as Attorney General following the Supreme Court’s conviction of Álvaro García Ortiz, as Madrid’s regional government argues Sánchez lacks legitimacy to make the appointment.
- Parliamentary rules indicate a deputy in pretrial detention cannot vote, and losing Ábalos’s ballot would further strain the numbers for the government’s spending cap and budget path in Congress.