Pedraz exonerates two PSOE workers in the Leire case and refuses to investigate the content of their phones: summoned as witnesses on July 28

The judge of the Audiencia Nacional Santiago Pedraz has agreed to withdraw the status of investigated from two administrative employees of the PSOE related to the so-called Leire case. In a resolution issued this Friday, the magistrate determines that both appear as witnesses next July 28 and, at the same time, rejects the request to clone and examine the mobile phones that were seized from them during the investigation.

The decision also affects other requests made in the procedure. Pedraz has also denied access to the content of the phone of the PSOE manager, Ana María Fuentes, who remains under investigation, as well as that of Civil Guard captain Juan Sánchez Yepes, who was accused of allegedly providing information to Leire Díez about the Central Operative Unit (UCO) and about Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas.

According to the order, the two workers, assigned to the party's Organization Secretariat, must hand over the communications they maintained between April 2024 and June 2025 with Santos Cerdán, Ana María Fuentes, Juan Manuel Serrano and former socialist militant Leire Díez.

The UCO investigation had focused on both employees, attributing to them administrative and logistical support tasks, including the management of Leire Díez's travel. The investigators considered that these actions supported the hypothesis that Santos Cerdán would have put party resources at the service of a "criminal structure" aimed at "protecting the PSOE and/or the Government, on the occasion of a series of judicial cases."

However, the magistrate concludes that there are no "sufficient indications" to affirm that the two administrative staff knew "the ultimate purpose for which the efforts were carried out to facilitate meetings, payments or accommodation of the investigated parties and their illicit plan under the alleged cover of the PSOE's Organization Secretariat."

The indictment of Juan Manuel Serrano

The judge of the Audiencia Nacional Santiago Pedraz has charged this Friday the former chief of staff of Pedro Sánchez in the PSOE and former president of Correos, Juan Manuel Serrano, within the so-called 'Leire case', the investigation that seeks to clarify an alleged plot to influence judicial proceedings affecting the Government and the PSOE. The decision comes after the Prosecutor's Office supported the request made by the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, which had requested that he be given the status of investigated and that the analysis of the content of his mobile phone be authorized.

Along with the indictment, the judge has acceded to that second request, in which UCO agents will be able to dump and examine Serrano's mobile phone as part of the proceedings opened in the case.

The meeting in Ferraz, "turning point" of the plot

The UCO has collected in a new report, to which EFE has had access, a series of communications between the former president of Correos and former chief of staff of Pedro Sánchez, Juan Manuel Serrano, and the former socialist militant Leire Díez after the publication of the letter in which Sánchez announced on April 24, 2024, that he was taking a few days to reflect on his continuity at the head of the Government after the indictment of his wife, Begoña Gómez.

According to investigators, just one day after that letter was made public, Serrano and Díez —who had previously worked as head of communication at Correos— agreed to go to the national headquarters of the PSOE, on Ferraz street. There, on April 26, they participated in a meeting with the then socialist Organization Secretary, Santos Cerdán. A meeting that the judge of the Audiencia Nacional in charge of the investigation considers the "turning point" of the alleged plot that sought to influence different judicial proceedings.

During that meeting, Leire Díez and the businessman Javier Pérez Dolset would have put on the table several audios recorded in August 2014. In those conversations appeared the former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo and the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez talking about the sauna business linked to the father-in-law of the President of the Government.

The UCO also highlights that, two days after that meeting, Serrano and Díez began to use the Signal messaging application, considered more secure. The report states that on April 29, coinciding with the day Sánchez was to announce whether or not he would continue leading the Executive, both exchanged messages about the political situation. In that context, and referring to the president, they noted that "this man must be helped."