The judge Juan Carlos Peinado, investigating the case against Begoña Gómez, has requested this Monday that the wife of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, prove that the only use she made of her passport was for the trip to the United Kingdom authorized by the court to attend her daughter's graduation.
The decision comes after the magistrate temporarily returned her passport, despite the fact that on June 20 he opened oral proceedings against Gómez and ordered, as a precautionary measure, the confiscation of the document and the prohibition of leaving Spain.
The court states that no entry or exit stamps are recorded
In the ruling issued this Monday, Peinado points out that, once the passport was recovered, no exit or entry record is noted in the document "on the authorized days".
For this reason, the magistrate considers it necessary for Begoña Gómez to justify that the passport was used exclusively for the authorized trip and that it was not used for any other foreign travel.
The request seeks to verify that the temporary suspension of the precautionary measure was limited to the specific purpose for which it was granted, that is, to allow her travel to the United Kingdom to attend her daughter's academic event.
The trip was authorized exceptionally
The travel authorization was not granted by Peinado, but by Judge Antonio Viejo, who was in charge of the court during the investigating judge's vacation.
The magistrate allowed Begoña Gómez to travel between July 8 and 10 to attend her daughter's graduation, considering that there was adequate judicial cooperation between Spain and the United Kingdom, even after Brexit, and that the reason for the trip was of a strictly family nature.
However, he rejected her request to travel to Ankara beforehand to accompany Pedro Sánchez at the NATO summit, understanding that her presence was solely for protocol reasons and that Turkey offers fewer guarantees of judicial cooperation than a member state of the European area.
After the trip concluded, Begoña Gómez returned the passport to the court again, with the precautionary measures ordered by Peinado being reinstated while appeals against her indictment remain pending resolution.
With this new requirement, the judge intends to verify that the exceptional authorization granted for travel was used solely on the terms established by the court, before deciding whether to take further action within the judicial proceeding.