The content of a three-hour and 19-minute recording made by Madrid prosecutor Ignacio Stampa has reignited the controversy surrounding the relationship between politics, justice and power in Spain. In the audio, to which El País has had access, former Socialist militant Leire Díez presents herself to Stampa as a direct envoy of the PSOE, stating that she was appointed by the party to investigate alleged irregularities in police reports and those of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
“This is strictly confidential and is something that stays here, but let’s say that I am the person who has put the PSOE to see what is behind all this,” said Díez at the beginning of the meeting, held on May 7 in the office of businessman Luis del Rivero, who acted as mediator.
The meeting was also attended by Javier Pérez-Dolset, a businessman involved in several legal cases, and Stampa himself, who recorded the entire conversation. Both Díez and Pérez-Dolset are today charged for alleged bribery and influence peddling, as they are accused of organizing a “criminal plan” in order to “discredit” the leadership of the Civil Guard and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
“You are Santos Cerdán’s right-hand man?”
During the meeting, Stampa tries to clarify who is behind Díez’s presence and whether his interlocutor has political backing. “Are you Santos Cerdán’s ‘right-hand man’?” the prosecutor asks him.
“Yes,” she replies.
“And Santos Cerdán is the party’s Secretary of Organization,” he insists.
“Yes, but I’m a ‘right-hand man’ who is never going to appear anywhere,” Díez qualifies.
At that time, Cerdán -then number three of the PSOE- was already being investigated by the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard in a corruption scheme that would later end with his imprisonment. Díez assures during the meeting that “everyone is very uneasy“.
A meeting under suspicion
Prosecutor Ignacio Stampa later declared before Judge Arturo Zamarriego, the investigator of the case, that he had gone to the meeting thinking that Santos Cerdán himself would be present, under the alleged intention of the Government to apologize to him for his departure from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office when he was in charge of the Villarejo case.
However, who appeared was Leire Díez, accompanied by the businessman Pérez-Dolset, who, during the conversation, assured that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, was aware of her efforts.
“Leire, this situation has to be reversed with all the victims. This has to be turned around no matter who falls and, fortunately, what the president [of the Government] has said is: ‘Listen, this will be cleaned up no matter who falls’. “, says Dolset in the audio.
Diez responds, “Clean yourself.”
And the entrepreneur adds: “Clean yourself without limit. Police officers who falsify reports, out. Prosecutors who hide evidence, out. Guys who fabricate cases, out. And the politicization of the judicial system…. “.
“I am the person the PSOE has put in place.”
The conversation progresses between insinuations, confidences and theories about judicial irregularities. Díez insists that he has been investigating “irregularities in police reports” and “some members of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office” for almost a year, as well as other issues that “did not fit” in different court cases.
In his testimony, Pérez-Dolset assures that he gave Díez recordings of commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, allegedly linked to the espionage of figures in the government environment. “Leire calls me and ‘hey Javier…’ (sic), of course there is such a big commotion…. Aren’t all the audios of the spying on the president [of the Government] there? And I told her yes, and I gave them to her “, says the businessman.
To which he adds, “Then the president already said: ‘let everything be cleaned up'”.
“I have nothing against him, I would like to know what they had against me.”
Stampa, who was removed from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in 2021, also speaks out during the meeting about his dismissal. “I have nothing against him [García Ortiz], I would like to know what they had against me. And now you come to tell me what they did wrong in taking me away? As you can understand, I am amazed! “, says the prosecutor.
Díez promises to pass on his version of the facts: “I will raise my opinion of what you are telling me where it needs to be raised,” he assures her.
“Álvaro has Stockholm syndrome with Lola”.
At another point in the conversation, the interlocutors discuss the figure of the Attorney General of the State, Alvaro Garcia Ortiz, and his predecessor, Dolores Delgado, who did not renew Stampa in his position of Anti-Corruption.
When Stampa asks if there is any explanation for this decision, Díez answers: “No, he hasn’t given it to me“. And he adds: “Álvaro what he has there is the Stockholm syndrome with Lola [Dolores Delgado]“.
Likewise, the former socialist militant points out that she has asked for explanations about the continuity of Alejandro Luzón at the head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office: “Now I am here, I am a bit of a ball-buster, very insistent, and I have to explain why Luzón is still there“.
He even goes so far as to assure that “people” of the hydrocarbons plot “openly” claim to have “bought an Anticorruption prosecutor”.
“Alvaro’s boss is going to know. Look what a problem”.
In the final section of the audio, prosecutor Stampa asks if Garcia Ortiz himself was aware of the meeting. “He’s going to know. I measure times too, eh “Díez responds.
The surprised prosecutor replies that if the attorney general finds out, “more people may know about it”. To which she replies with forcefulness: “I’ll tell you what I know. Yes, it doesn’t matter. If I don’t have any problem, what’s more, Álvaro’s boss is going to know about it. What a problem “.
When Stampa asks to whom she is referring, she does not hesitate: “Alvaro’s boss, do you mean the minister or the president? -All of them “, he concludes.
A meeting under judicial scrutiny
The recording, which is already part of the judicial summary, is a key piece in the investigation opened by the Court of Instruction number 9 of Madrid, where both Leire Díez and Javier Pérez-Dolset appear as defendants. The objective of the investigation is to clarify whether there was an orchestrated maneuver to influence judicial proceedings and discredit members of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Civil Guard.
The case has reopened the debate on the independence of justice and possible political interference in its functioning, while the name of Ignacio Stampa, who was one of the most visible figures in the Villarejo case, returns to the center of the media spotlight for a meeting that, according to his testimony, should never have taken place in those terms.
