Phoenix 24
Her testimony deepens an investigation into whether party resources financed a covert political operation.
MADRID, SPAIN
PSOE general manager Ana María Fuentes has told Spain’s National Court that former party secretary Santos Cerdán authorized services connected to two lawyers investigated in the Leire Díez case. Fuentes said she approved the resulting payments only after Cerdán confirmed that the work had been completed.
Fuentes testified before investigating judge Santiago Pedraz as a formal suspect in a possible document-forgery offense. Investigators are examining contracting records issued to justify payments to lawyers Jacobo Teijelo and Ismael Oliver. The judge suspects that some documents may have been created retrospectively to conceal the actual beneficiaries or purpose of the funds.
Oliver reportedly told the court that Díez hired him on behalf of the PSOE to provide legal advice concerning the parliamentary investigation into Operation Catalonia. The inquiry is attempting to determine whether payments described as legitimate professional services were instead used to compensate Díez and others involved in gathering information against judges, prosecutors, police officers or political figures regarded as threats to Pedro Sánchez’s government.
Fuentes remains the only serving PSOE official formally investigated in this branch of the case. Cerdán, Díez and several former socialist and Civil Guard officials are also under investigation. Cerdán resigned from his party positions in 2025 because of his alleged involvement in the separate Koldo corruption case.
The testimony transfers operational responsibility upward within the PSOE’s former organizational structure, but it does not establish that Cerdán ordered an illegal campaign or that Sánchez knew about the payments. Those questions remain subject to documentary analysis and judicial examination. The political consequences, however, are already significant because the investigation concerns the possible use of party resources to influence or obstruct institutions responsible for scrutinizing government power.
Political authority loses legitimacy when accountability disappears inside the chain of command.