{"id":9894,"date":"2024-08-02T20:48:14","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T17:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/?p=9894"},"modified":"2024-08-02T20:48:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T17:18:14","slug":"spanish-pms-wife-files-lawsuit-against-judge-probing-graft-afp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/?p=9894","title":{"rendered":"Spanish PM&#8217;s wife files lawsuit against judge probing graft: AFP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"headline_content_block post_template-0\">\n<div class=\"headline_section mb-2\">\n<h4 class=\"font-weight-bold\">World desk:<br \/>\nThe Spanish prime minister&#8217;s wife Begona Gomez launched a lawsuit Friday against the judge investigating her for alleged corruption and influence peddling, according to a document seen by AFP.Gomez is alleged to have used her husband&#8217;s position as leverage within her professional circles to influence contracts or set up a masters program at a Madrid university where she works.By filing a lawsuit, Gomez followed in the footsteps of her husband and socialist premier Pedro Sanchez who on Wednesday said he launched a lawsuit claiming abuse of office by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado.A lawsuit was filed by Gomez&#8217;s defence in Madrid claiming that Peinado had &#8220;adopted arbitrary and manifestly unfair judicial decisions&#8221; against her as part of an &#8220;unusual and erratic&#8221; investigation, according to the document seen by AFP.The prime minister&#8217;s wife also accuses the judge of having broken the secrecy of the investigation &#8212; since it had not yet been made public &#8212; after the Madrid courts sent out press releases on the case and certain media published material from the file.Gomez is being investigated for alleged influence-peddling and corruption following a complaint filed by anti-graft NGO &#8220;Manos Limpias&#8221; &#8212; Spanish for &#8220;Clean Hands&#8221; &#8212; which has links to the far right.On Tuesday, Sanchez used his legal right not to testify against his wife when questioned by Peinado.Shortly after the hearing, Spain&#8217;s state legal services filed a lawsuit in Sanchez&#8217;s name and said the premier&#8217;s request to testify in writing, as allowed under Spanish law for top government officials, had been unjustifiably rejected.&#8221;The dignity of the institution of the office of the prime minister is being defended,&#8221; Sanchez told a news conference when asked why the lawsuit was filed.The &#8220;rights&#8221; of the office &#8220;have been violated, nothing more and nothing less, by the judge,&#8221; he added.Sanchez has denied any wrongdoing by his wife and has repeatedly argued the allegations are part of a right-wing smear campaign against his left-wing government.The case has put pressure on Sanchez&#8217;s minority coalition government, with the main opposition Popular Party (PP) calling on Sanchez to resign.The only time a sitting Spanish prime minister has testified in a judicial case was in 2017 when Mariano Rajoy was summoned in a graft case that led to the conviction of several members of his party, the PP.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World desk: The Spanish prime minister&#8217;s wife Begona Gomez launched a lawsuit Friday against the judge investigating her for alleged corruption and influence peddling, according to a document seen by AFP.Gomez is alleged to have used her husband&#8217;s position as leverage within her professional circles to influence contracts or set up a masters program at a Madrid university where she works.By filing a lawsuit, Gomez followed in the footsteps of her husband and socialist premier Pedro Sanchez who on Wednesday said he launched a lawsuit claiming abuse of office by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"yes","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_5980380192037842_108390337697511":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9896,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9894\/revisions\/9896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}