{"id":8148,"date":"2024-07-23T11:58:31","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T06:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=8148"},"modified":"2024-07-23T11:58:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T06:58:33","slug":"spains-pm-summoned-as-witness-in-wifes-alleged-corruption-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/world\/spains-pm-summoned-as-witness-in-wifes-alleged-corruption-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain’s PM summoned as witness in wife’s alleged corruption case"},"content":{"rendered":"

MADRID, July 23 (Reuters) – A Spanish court on Monday summoned Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to testify as a witness in an investigation into alleged corruption and influence peddling accusations against his wife that led him to\u00a0consider resigning\u00a0in April.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanchez, who runs a minority Socialist-led government, will be interviewed by investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado at his official residence, the Moncloa Palace, on July 30, the court said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proceedings are part of a preliminary investigation into whether\u00a0Begona Gomez\u00a0used her position as the premier’s wife to secure sponsors for a university master’s degree course that she ran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peinado said Sanchez’s testimony would be “convenient, useful and relevant” for the investigation to establish whether there was influence peddling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Spanish law, close relatives including spouses can refuse to answer questions, lawyer Luis Romero told Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gomez appeared before the judge on Friday but declined to answer questions as instructed by her lawyers, who said the case was “groundless”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has not commented publicly on the case, but Sanchez has denied the accusations against her, saying they were baseless and orchestrated by right-wing political foes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s obvious that this has always been a staged case, a far-right and right-wing setup against the prime minister,” Socialist parliamentary spokesperson Patxi Lopez told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, Sanchez took a five-day break from his duties to consider whether to resign after the court opened the investigation, but ultimately he decided to stay on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the first time a sitting Spanish prime minister has been called to testify in a judicial case since Mariano Rajoy was summoned as a witness in 2017 in a graft case that led to the conviction of several members of his conservative People’s Party and ultimately to a 2018 vote of no confidence in Rajoy.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MADRID, July 23 (Reuters) – A Spanish court on Monday summoned Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to testify as a witness in an investigation into alleged corruption and influence peddling accusations against his wife that led him to\u00a0consider resigning\u00a0in April. Sanchez, who runs a minority Socialist-led government, will be interviewed by investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":8149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}