A FORMER interior minister of Spain has gone on trial for allegedly spying on an ex-Partido Popular (PP) treasurer who was planning to reveal corruption.
Jorge Fernandez Diaz served between 2011 and 2016 under ex-PP prime minister Mariano Rajoy.
Diaz and former senior interior ministry officials are accused of a plot to spy on and silence ex-PP treasurer Luis Barcenas, using public money and without any legal basis to do so.
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Barcenas, who served as party treasurer until 2009, was taken into pre-trial detention in 2013 for irregularities in PP accounts and had threatened to reveal secrets about illegal party financing because he did not feel sufficiently supported.
Barcenas told the El Mundo newspaper that it was ‘impossible that an operation of this kind was carried out without the knowledge of the party’s highest authorities’, but did not mention Rajoy.
Prosecutors are seeking 15 years in jail for Fernandez Diaz for crimes including embezzlement and infringing privacy.
The National Court trial is set to last for up to three months.
Over 100 witnesses are expected to be called including Barcenas, Rajoy, and other ex-PP senior figures.
On Tuesday, a former confidant of PSOE socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez has gone on trial for corruption.
The ex-transport minister, Jose Luis Abalos, is being tried over irregularities in procuring protective masks during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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