Spain’s political tensions escalated on Friday as new details emerged about the Supreme Court’s unprecedented conviction of the country’s attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, for leaking confidential information to damage a leading conservative figure.
The court confirmed a two-year ban from office, a €7,200 fine, and €10,000 in compensation for releasing a private email linked to a tax case involving Alberto González Amador, the partner of Madrid’s regional leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The leak concerned plea-deal discussions between his lawyer and prosecutors. García Ortiz is the first serving attorney general in Spain’s democratic era to be tried—and now convicted.
Although he remains in his post for now, the government expects to appoint a replacement once the full written judgment is issued, likely within two weeks.
The ruling was approved by five judges against two. The decision was published earlier than planned after the judge who was meant to write the verdict stepped aside, saying she intended to issue a dissent calling for García Ortiz’s acquittal.
Testimony during the trial appears to have played a decisive role. Investigators from Spain’s Guardia Civil said messages on García Ortiz’s phone had been deliberately deleted shortly after the case against him was opened. Madrid’s chief prosecutor also testified that she confronted him at the time over suspicions that he had leaked the email, and said he later pushed for a press release quoting parts of the private correspondence.
The government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said it “respects” the ruling but “does not agree with it,” and has signalled that García Ortiz will appeal to Spain’s Constitutional Court—something made possible by the two dissenting judges.
The conservative opposition, however, says the conviction shows that Sánchez used the attorney general to attack Ayuso politically. The Popular Party has called for the prime minister to resign.
The case comes as Sánchez’s government faces a wave of separate corruption investigations involving former ministers and figures close to the ruling Socialist Party. Anti-corruption prosecutors this week requested 24 years in prison for former transport minister José Luis Ábalos over alleged wrongdoing during the pandemic, adding to mounting pressure on the government.
With the legislature already strained and relations between the government and the judiciary at their lowest point in years, the downfall of the attorney general has quickly become another flashpoint in Spain’s widening crisis.
