The magistrate of the Audiencia Nacional Santiago Pedraz has agreed to extend the instruction of the 'Leire Díez case' for another six months, as "multiple" investigative proceedings remain pending, including the appearances of the main investigated persons and the examination of the documentation seized in the police searches. At the same time, the judge warns that he does not rule out promoting new actions in the proceedings.
According to the order to which Europa Press has had access, the investigating judge extends the investigation period by another six months, from next December 10 and until June 10, 2027, "without prejudice to successive extensions for equal or shorter periods of up to six months that may be agreed" once that deadline arrives.
Pedraz takes this decision to continue advancing in clarifying the alleged scheme aimed at hindering judicial investigations that affect the PSOE, the Government, and relatives of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, which would supposedly have been headed by the former Socialist leader Santos Cerdán and coordinated by the former party member Leire Díez.
In line with the criterion of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the judge maintains that "for the proper completion of the instruction it is necessary to carry out and/or conclude the requested proceedings" and underscores that "there are multiple investigative proceedings still pending to be carried out, which inevitably oblige to extend the instruction of the case."
Among those actions, the order mentions as most "relevant" the statement as investigated persons of "the main implicated parties," among whom are Cerdán, Díez, the former Andalusian vice president Gaspar Zarrías or the businessman Javier Pérez Dolset, among other names that appear in the case.
All of this remains "subject to the analysis of the documentation and evidence found in the entries and searches carried out, precisely in the first proceedings," Pedraz recalls, in reference to the investigations carried out last May, when, a few days before the lifting of the secrecy of the case file, the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard accessed the PSOE headquarters on Madrid's Ferraz street and the homes of several of the defendants.
The magistrate insists that "it cannot be ruled out" that "from the result of those pending diligences to be carried out" "new elements will emerge on which new diligences must be carried out", a circumstance that will remain "at the mercy of the result yielded by those already agreed upon in previous resolutions".
Pedraz highlights the "complexity" and "thoroughness" of the investigation, as well as "the seriousness of the facts under investigation", factors which, in his view, require a "deep investigation of the same" and serve to justify the extension of the period of the investigation.