SPAIN’S ex-Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is appearing before a judge in Madrid on Wednesday in a corruption probe.
He will be quizzed for two days over his alleged role in a government airline bailout as well as inquiries into how he obtained high-value jewellery found during a police raid on his office.
Zapatero is the first past or present head of a Spanish government to stand accused in a corruption case since the transition to democracy in 1970’s.
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It is his first appearance before the National Court since he was placed under investigation in May for alleged influence peddling, money laundering and other possible financial wrongdoing in connection with the government’s rescue of the Plus Ultra airline.
Zapatero, 65, who was prime minister from 2004 to 2011, had been out of public office for a decade when Plus Ultra received €53 million in state cash in 2021 from a Covid-19 pandemic recovery fund.
Plus Ultra, which had investors from Venezuela, was an airline specialising in flights between Spain and South America.
Since leaving office, Zapatero has focused a large part of his activity on maintaining dialogue with the government in Venezuela, which was largely isolated from Western countries after it cracked down on the democratic opposition.
The court order also refers to the company owned by the former prime minister’s daughters, What The Fav, which received up to €2 million for “consultancy” and from preparatory work that may have been used to disguise illegal kickbacks.
The investigating judge, Jose Luis Calama, who has described Zapatero as the head of an ‘organised network’, will today hear the former PM’s explanations behind closed doors.
The judge is also probing a possible tax fraud crime and dealing in contraband related to jewellery worth €1.3 million discovered in a safe during last months’ search of Zapatero’s office in May.
Zapatero has denied any wrongdoing in the airline case and has said that the jewellery was inherited or received as gifts.
His solicitor had requested that the issue about the jewellery be excluded from the first session of question, but the judge rejected the move, saying there is no ‘real impairment of his right to a defence’.
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