Sawt Falasteen - Graft trial of Spanish PM's ex-top aide begins

The case affecting Jose Luis Abalos, a former Socialist heavyweight and transport minister who helped propel Sanchez to power in 2018, is the first of several corruption affairs shaking the fragile coalition to reach trial.

It has embarrassed Sanchez, who came to power vowing to clean up Spanish politics after ousting a conservative Popular Party (PP) government in a no-confidence vote over its own graft scandal.

Abalos and his former adviser Koldo Garcia are suspected of pocketing kickbacks for handing out public contracts worth millions of euros for sanitary equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Supreme Court in Madrid will judge them for alleged bribery, embezzlement, influence peddling, membership of a criminal organisation and misuse of confidential information. The men deny the charges.

Prosecutors want 24 years in jail for Abalos, portraying him as the mastermind of a scheme of illicit enrichment, and have called for a 19-year term for Garcia, who they say was a key intermediary.

They have argued that both men abused their government positions and contacts to favour a businessman, Victor de Aldama, who has already admitted his role in the vast and complex affair.

Parliament speaker Francina Armengol and government minister Angel Victor Torres, respectively the former Socialist leaders of the Balearic and Canary Islands regional administrations, submitted written testimony denying ties with the defendants.

The purchase of masks, in high demand and short supply during the pandemic's early months, was "carried out with technical and administrative rigour, with no risk of illegality perceived at any time", Torres wrote in his statement.

- 'Trust broken' -

Abalos gazed at the proceedings with apparent calm as the submissions were read out, an AFP journalist saw.

Next to him, Garcia kept looking at the floor, holding his head in his hand.

Abalos's son Victor told the court he "was not the custodian of anyone's money", saying that loans he gave his father came from personal income and not illicit sources.

Garcia's brother Joseba said he had twice gone to the Socialists' Madrid headquarters to collect money.

More than 75 witnesses and about 20 experts are to testify during the proceedings, which are due to run through April.

The Socialists have sought to distance themselves from the case.

"If trust is broken, that is when it is necessary to act. The PSOE did," government spokeswoman Elma Saiz told a press conference, referring to the party by its acronym and the expulsion of Abalos.

But PP secretary general Miguel Tellado wrote on X that "the scheme that was born at the heart" of Sanchez's leadership was on trial, as Abalos and Garcia helped the premier win Socialist primaries in 2017.

- Succession of scandals -

Abalos's successor in the powerful post of Socialist organisation secretary, Santos Cerdan, has also stepped down after a police report identified him in an investigation into irregularly awarded public works contracts.

The fall of Abalos and Cerdan, two of Sanchez's closest allies, has threatened to tear apart the Socialists' coalition with its far-left partners in Sumar.

Separate corruption investigations into Sanchez's wife Begona Gomez and his brother David, who faces trial later this year, have piled further pressure on the government, one of the few leftist administrations in Europe.

The PP and the far-right opposition party Vox have called for Sanchez's resignation and early elections, saying the scandals expose systemic Socialist corruption that reaches the premier himself.

Sanchez has denied any illegal funding of his party and rebuffed calls for a vote before the next general election, due in 2027.

T.Khatib--SF-PST