Leire Díez, the PSOE's fixer, faces mounting court cases in Spain

Leire Díez, the PSOE's fixer, now faces cases in four courts

The plot that for months was dismissed as sewer noise now has a name in the court records. Leire Díez, known as the fixer of Ferraz (the PSOE headquarters), is under investigation in at least four courts over alleged schemes aimed at disabling the Guardia Civil's Central Operative Unit (UCO) and pressuring judges who embarrassed the Government, according to published reports. What began as a journalistic leak has ended in open proceedings, admitted lawsuits and a trail of court appearances which, according to those reports, point to a stable structure rather than isolated initiatives by a handful of hotheads.

The first flashpoint was the February meeting with a suspect in a fuel-trafficking scheme, who was asked for compromising material against Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas. The conversation, published by El Confidencial, included an instruction that has hung over the whole case: they needed "one or two clear irregularities, absolutely proven." It was not an investigation, it was a hunt with specific targets.

From the February meeting to the case in Madrid

The court in Badajoz referred the investigation against Díez to Madrid over her manoeuvring against the judge handling the case of Sánchez's brother, and the capital peine its own proceedings. Complaints in three other courts were added to that, according to the information that has emerged. The Madrid Provincial Court later upheld a Vox appeal and ordered proceedings peine over Díez's role at Correos, where tailor-made requirements were designed so she could join the company. The drip-feed of open fronts turns the affair into more than an episode: it is a pattern.

The UCO has gone further. According to the information gathered, the unit states that the sewer networks acted against Judge Beatriz Biedma to protect the PSOE, the Government and "its president", and places Díez as "at the very least" aware of the proposal to the Los Rocho clan to eliminate the magistrate. Biedma herself reported to the police that former judge Luis Sáenz de Tejada trinc her by car after she testified. The former judge ended up acknowledging the letter to Leire Díez in which he targeted the judge handling Sánchez's brother's case.

Who gave the orders and who looked the other way

The question running through the case is less what Díez did than who sent her. Moncloa (the Prime Minister's office) acknowledged that minister Hernando met with her "during a period of crisis" after Sánchez's withdrawal, and according to The Objective asked for her pendrive to "study it at Moncloa": "It's interesting." The UCO also revealed that the PSOE reserved a parking space for Díez at Ferraz. The story of the freelance fixer sits poorly with those credentials.

The CGPJ (Spain's judicial governing body) does not come out well either. The nine PSOE members took 30 seconds to stand aside in the face of the harassment of Biedma, according to the published information, and their refusal complicates the pogre of appointments. The judge did not request protection despite the hunt: "I didn't want the spotlight." Some read institutional silence in that as an alibi, others attribute it to the body's paralysis.

The showdown with Pedraz and the economic front

The case has an economic dimension that goes beyond political espionage. Díez's notes record meetings with the Aperribay family before Sepides's loan to Sapa, and it is documented that she negotiated with the Basque Government to influence the SEPI over the rescue of Tubos Reunidos demanded by the PNV. The oil company favoured by the Basque nationalists with whom she negotiated changed its name. The fixer, a board member of a Navarrese company that received one million euros from the Government, boasted of a direct line to Pedro Sánchez and promised favours to an investigated Guardia Civil commander.

The institutional showdown is served: Judge Pedraz demanded that the PSOE hand over within 48 hours the list of lawyers, law firms and consultancies contracted between 2021 and 2025, and Ferraz decided not to hand over the payments to the sewer network's lawyers. The Court had already upheld Vox's appeal over Correos. Each refusal adds another layer to the same problem.

What the Government has at stake in this case

The case against Díez is not an isolated accident. It is the visible tip of a way of governing that treats institutions as obstacles to be neutralised, according to the published reports. The offensive against the UCO, which according to Vozpópuli the Executive seeks to "disable" for investigating its corruption, fits with the rest of the pieces: lawsuits, demonstrations and escraches (public harassment campaigns) to pressure judges, according to the UCO. El Debate's editorial called it "Sánchez's mafia"; the label is opinion, but the facts underpinning it are in the court records, according to those reports.

It remains to be seen how far the chain of command goes. Leire Díez announced that she will tell the judge from whom she "received instructions" on Moncloa's orders, and Aldama's acquittal would make it easier for him to cooperate with Zapatero's friend. If that testimony happens and holds up, the case stops being a fixer with an agenda and becomes a structure. If not, it will remain in the limbo of cases that open and then deflate.

The prediction, with all the caveats: the judicial front will not close soon. The four courts, the showdown with Pedraz and the pressure on Biedma have a long way to run. What is unclear is whether anyone will pay for it or whether, as with the cold drop, the structure will outlive the puddle.