Spain's supreme court has sentenced former transport minister José Luis Ábalos to 24 years in prison for taking bribes on public contracts for sanitary equipment, including face masks, during the Covid-19 pandemic. His aide, Koldo García, received a 19-year sentence. The case is considered particularly damaging for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, as Ábalos was a trusted right-hand man for many years.
The court found Ábalos and García guilty of being part of a criminal organisation, bribery, misuse of public funds, money laundering, and influence peddling. The judges stated that the seriousness of the charges 'derives from the fact that they erode the fundamentals of a democratic state and distort the purpose of public power into an instrument at the service of individual interests'. Both men have been in preventive custody since November and heard the sentencing via video-conference from a Madrid prison.
The sentencing comes amid a series of scandals enveloping Sánchez's government. Two days earlier, a separate court ruled that Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez, who faces corruption and influence-peddling charges, is a flight risk and must surrender her passport. The judge, Juan Carlos Peinado, suggested that members of her security detail might help her escape, leading Spain's judicial watchdog to take disciplinary action against him for impugning the integrity of public servants.
Additionally, Sánchez's brother, David, is on trial over allegations of receiving a bespoke job from a Socialist-led council. Both Gómez and David Sánchez deny any wrongdoing, and the prime minister has described these cases as part of a harassment campaign. The rightwing pressure group Manos Limpias brought the cases against both Gómez and David Sánchez, raising concerns about 'lawfare' in Spain, where courts must consider cases from private organisations regardless of their merit.
Ábalos is the fifth government minister to be jailed since Spain's transition to democracy in 1978. Businessman Víctor de Aldama, linked to the scandal, was sentenced to four and a half years but his sentence was suspended due to cooperation, and he will not have to repay the €3.7m (£3.2m) he received in commissions.
