The former magistrate Luis Sáenz de Tejada will appear this Wednesday as an investigated party before the judge of the Audiencia Nacional Santiago Pedraz, instructor of the "Leire Díez case," for his alleged participation in actions against the judge of Badajoz Beatriz Biedma, who handled the case against David Sánchez, brother of the President of the Government.
Sáenz de Tejada must present himself at the Audiencia Nacional at 10:30 a.m. to testify before Pedraz as a possible responsible for crimes of criminal organization, defamation, and against moral integrity. This summons comes after Biedma requested his indictment after testifying as a victim, claiming that she felt persecuted and distressed by the alleged harassment from the former judge.
According to reports from the Guardia Civil, Sáenz de Tejada would be related to an alleged network aimed at stopping or hindering judicial proceedings that would affect the PSOE and the Executive, a plot that would have been led by the former socialist leader Santos Cerdán and coordinated by the former militant Leire Díez.
The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Guardia Civil places the origin of the alleged maneuvers against Biedma in a contact made in August 2024 between the businessmen Joaquín Parra and Javier Pérez Dolset. In that conversation, the latter allegedly asked the former "if he had any contact in Badajoz, specifying that request in relation to the former magistrate Sáenz de Tejada," according to the agents.
In that same month of August 2024, a WhatsApp group called "Vacations and trips" was created, in which Dolset, Díez, Parra, and Sáenz de Tejada participated. For the investigators, this chat would have been "the main communication channel used regarding this line of action."
In another of its reports, the UCO includes the testimony of a woman identified as Cintia Rocho, who is linked to a criminal group in Badajoz dedicated to drug trafficking. In that testimony, Rocho stated that Sáenz de Tejada told her that Biedma "was a fucking pain in the ass and needed to be eliminated."
A statement considered key by the prosecution
The legal representation of Biedma requested the appearance of the former magistrate, understanding it as "nuclear to clarify his role, his contacts, the purpose of his actions, and his participation in the alleged criminal organization."
In her writing, the judge stated that Sáenz de Tejada's prior enmity towards her was "the reason why Díez recruited him, and from the beginning of the proceedings against David Sánchez, his actions were directly and continuously focused on the instructing magistrate, reproducing exactly the objectives set by the group and the handwritten notes seized."
The former judge, on the other hand, held the investigators of the UCO responsible for lying, accusing them of having made a "false accusation of facts without any investigation," in a document addressed to Pedraz, in which he denied having harassed the magistrate.
Sáenz de Tejada insisted that it is "absolutely false" that he contacted Rocho or that he spoke to him about the need to "eliminate" Biedma, and attributed to the agents of the UCO the alleged commission of a crime of forgery in a public document. He also pointed to the witnesses for that same crime, in conjunction with a crime of defamation and insults.
Furthermore, Biedma reported to the Superior Headquarters of the National Police of Extremadura that, on the day he testified in the National Court, while driving back to his home in Badajoz from the Talavera de la Real airport with his daughters, one of them noticed that "a white car," whose license plate they could not note, was driving parallel to his and that it was occupied by Sáenz de Tejada. After this episode, a security and protection device was activated for the magistrate.
The former judge also denied this point in another document, in which he stated that on that day he was "450 kilometers away," in Uceda (Guadalajara), and that he spent the whole day at his sister's house.