The PSOE has asked the National Court judge Santiago Pedraz to exercise extreme caution with the banking information incorporated into the 'Leire case'. Ferraz demands that movements unrelated to the investigated facts be removed and that only the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office can initially consult the economic piece.
The request comes after Pedraz requested from twelve financial entities the balances and movements of 82 accounts related to the investigation, six of them belonging to the Socialist Party. The diligence covers operations carried out since 2024 and aims to reconstruct the path of the funds that would have ended up in the hands of former militant Leire Díez.
The request keeps the analysis entrusted to the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard intact. The PSOE focuses its claims on the information of workers, suppliers, militants, and other entities that may appear in the movements unrelated to the case. The party is not listed as investigated as a legal entity.
An Anti-Corruption filter
The socialists maintain that the banking request agreed by Pedraz is generic and contains "a multitude of movements" that affect numerous people and organizations. Their letter demands to preserve the privacy of these third parties and prevent the data from being leaked to public opinion.
Ferraz proposes that Anti-Corruption first examine the documentation and carry out the expurgation before providing the relevant content to the rest of the parties. The economic piece was already created separately to gather banking information and reduce the risk of disseminating private documents.
Pedraz accepted a similar request from the PSOE in June and ordered the removal from the procedure of files unrelated to the investigation that had been obtained during the judicial request made at the Ferraz headquarters. The party intends for this same caution to be applied now to bank accounts.
The party also recalls that it handed over to the UCO the information it had about the accounts used to pay several investigated individuals. It considers that some amounts could have been subsequently used illegitimately and "outside the organization" to cover expenses unrelated to the party's activity, statutes, and principles.
The trail of 43,225 euros
The UCO has so far identified five transfers totaling 43,225 euros that would have reached Leire Díez through companies related to Gaspar Zarrías and Ismael Oliver. Agents are trying to find out if those payments concealed work linked to the investigated actions.
Four transfers of 4,000 euros were paid to Díez through Zaño Sociedad Consultores, linked to former socialist leader Gaspar Zarrías. The other 27,225 euros would have circulated through a company related to lawyer Ismael Oliver, who defended former ministerial advisor Koldo García.
The investigation seeks to determine if there was a structure led by former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán and coordinated by Díez to obtain compromising information about judges, prosecutors, and agents related to sensitive procedures for the party and the Government. All those under investigation maintain their presumption of innocence.
Lawyer Ismael Oliver and PSOE manager, Ana María Fuentes, are summoned before Pedraz next September 9. Both must explain the documentation used to justify the transfers, the concepts of the payments, and their relationship with the work attributed to Díez.
The spokesperson for the Popular Party in Congress, Ester Muñoz, has taken advantage of the request to accuse Ferraz of having "something to hide." "If I had my accounts perfectly clean, I would be eager for everyone to see them," she stated. The socialist brief allows the judge, Anticorruption, and the UCO to access the accounts and limits their claim to movements unrelated to the case, a difference that the popular leader left out of her response.
Pedraz must now decide whether Anticorruption performs that first filter before the banking information reaches the rest of the parties involved.
