Sumar explodes against controversial judge Peinado after sending Begoña Gómez to trial: "Hold my drink, we're going to keep playing"

Aina Vidal has resorted to irony to express Sumar's indignation with the controversial judge Juan Carlos Peinado. The deputy from Comuns said this Tuesday that the magistrate seems to act "with a cigar and a drink in hand" and completed the image with a "hold my drink, we're going to keep playing". Her criticism comes a day after Peinado opened an oral trial with a popular jury against Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.

The resolution brings Gómez before the jury for alleged crimes of influence peddling and embezzlement. Her advisor, Cristina Álvarez, will go to trial for the latter crime. The Prosecutor's Office requests the acquittal of both, while the popular prosecution seeks a conviction for the president's wife. There is no date yet for the hearing.

Sumar accuses Peinado of seeking "public harassment"

Vidal maintains that the investigation has from the beginning pursued the "public harassment" of Gómez and links it to the strategy of the far-right organizations involved in the case. "Everything we are seeing is a disgrace," she stated in Congress. The metaphor of the cigar and the drink was part of that political denunciation.

The parliamentary spokesperson for Sumar, Verónica Martínez Barbero, has criticized the content of the order signed by Peinado a few days before his retirement. In her opinion, the judge seems to want to do "a last service to the homeland or something similar". The deputy questioned that the resolution resorts to references to Fernando VII and totalitarian regimes to argue about embezzlement, and accused the instructor of orienting the case towards a popular jury.

Martínez Barbero distinguished that criticism from her position on the court that will have to judge Gómez. She defended the institution of the jury and asked to trust in it. The Compromís deputy Alberto Ibáñez was harsher with Peinado and assured that he trusts any of the citizens who make up the jury more than the magistrate who directed the investigation.

The Audiencia cut short the case and the defense retains a procedural avenue

The Más Madrid deputy Tesh Sidi has described the investigation as "sloppy" and Peinado as "really incompetent". Sidi maintains that higher courts have corrected numerous decisions by the judge and has expressed her support for Gómez. She has also warned of the effect that, in her opinion, the media exposure of a case so linked to political confrontation could have on a future jury.

The Provincial Court of Madrid endorsed that Gómez be tried, but reduced to two the crimes for which the procedure can go ahead and withdrew the personal precautionary measures that Peinado had imposed on her. That is the scope of its decisions so far: the trial can be held and the criminal responsibility of the accused remains to be determined.

The opening of the oral trial also does not close all discussions about how the case has been processed. When the procedure reaches the Court, the defense may raise preliminary questions before the magistrate presiding over the jury, including objections about the facts included in the 'Hazte Oír' indictment. It will be that magistrate who examines the requests before setting which facts and which evidence will reach the trial.