The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has attended to the complaint of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero over the leak of his 2024 and 2025 agendas and WhatsApp conversations with his secretary, Gertrudis Alcázar. The magistrate has ordered the UDEF that, from now on, it does not include in its reports “unnecessary or irrelevant” information for the purpose of the procedure.
The decision comes within the Plus Ultra case, where Calama is investigating the former president for alleged influence peddling and money laundering. The defense of Zapatero had requested measures after personal documentation was disseminated included in a police report, among it complete agendas and a dump of more than a thousand pages of messages.
The judge does not remove the UDEF from the investigation nor question the substance of the inquiries. What he does is set a limit on the material that can accompany police reports. The annexes must stick to the facts under investigation and avoid personal data unrelated to the case.
The clash over police annexes
The resolution responds to the brief submitted by Zapatero's representation last June 25. The defense denounced a massive dissemination of personal data and requested that the investigation not be fed with information without direct connection to the facts defined in the case.
Calama now takes up that concern and orders a mandate to the UDEF so that its annexes respect the principles of necessity and proportionality. In practical terms, the Police must better filter what it incorporates into the case and justify that this material is related to the open investigation.
The debate is not minor. The published agendas and messages have had political and media impact, but part of that documentation contains appointments, conversations, and personal data. The defense of the former president maintains that this exposure affects fundamental rights and that not everything seized can circulate as if it had criminal value.
A case with several open ramifications
The main procedure investigates whether there was a network of influence around the public bailout of Plus Ultra, an airline that received 53 million euros from the state fund to support strategic companies during the pandemic. The UDEF is working on meetings, messages, companies, and payments that, according to the investigators, could point to an organized network around Zapatero's circle.
The case has also added a separate piece for the jewels found in a safe in the former president's office during the search carried out on May 19. That line was opened for possible tax and smuggling offenses after a preliminary valuation of 1.3 million euros.
In parallel, Hacienda has today informed the judge that it maintains open tax inspections on Zapatero, his family, his daughters' company, and businessman Julio Martínez. The Tax Agency has requested that the suspension of these administrative actions be evaluated while the criminal investigation progresses.
Calama's resolution now introduces a caution about the way the Police incorporate material into the case. The investigation continues, but the next UDEF reports must separate more precisely what serves the investigation from what belongs to the personal sphere of the former president.
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