Spanish prosecutor general Alvaro Garcia Ortiz will be tried in early November over allegations of leaking confidential information in a tax fraud case involving the partner of a leading opposition figure, the Supreme Court said on Friday. Garcia Ortiz says he is innocent and has the backing of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has publicly defended him on numerous occasions.
Forty people, including eight prosecutors and 12 reporters, have been called to testify as witnesses in the trial, one of several judicial woes besetting Sanchez's government. A trial of the country's prosecutor general is unprecedented since Spain's return to democracy in 1978. The case against Garcia Ortiz is at the heart of frictions between Spain's leftist national government and Isabel Diaz Ayuso, Madrid's right-wing regional leader, with each side accusing the other of corruption.
Garcia Ortiz is accused of sharing with media the contents of an email exchange between the regional prosecutor's office and the lawyer representing Alberto Gonzalez Amador, Diaz Ayuso's boyfriend. In the email, the lawyer offered his client's admission to two counts of tax fraud in exchange for a negotiated settlement to avoid jail penalties.
Gonzalez Amador later testified in court that he had no knowledge of the proposed deal. The Supreme Court said Garcia Ortiz's trial is scheduled to take place between November 3 and November 13. Gonzalez Amador will also take the stand as a witness. Opposition leader Alberto Nunez-Feijoo has called for Garcia Ortiz to resign, adding that someone accused of malfeasance cannot be tasked with prosecuting crimes.
The trial is one of several legal challenges faced by Sanchez's administration, including a corruption probe into two former allies, accusations of influence peddling against his brother, and an investigation into whether his wife, Begona Gomez, leveraged her status for business purposes.
Next to the wife of the PM, the Prime Minister’s brother, David Sánchez, faces charges of alleged influence-trading, embezzlement and prevarication. This probe concerns his €55,000 annual appointment at the Diputación de Badajoz without competition, a public body handling rural development projects subsidised by EU agricultural and cohesion funds.
While the amount is relatively modest in the case, Spanish media highlighted it as evidence of “institutional favouritism” potentially tainting EU rural aid. PM Sánchez described the issues as “isolated” in June 2025, ordering a PSOE audit without resignations, although these cases all came out of the Koldo García scandal.
García is the key figure in a Spanish Supreme Court case that centres on alleged corruption related to public contracts during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially those to supply medical material, such as face masks. García, who was an adviser to Ábalos, is accused of helping the company Soluciones de Gestión win several contracts by influencing tendering processes in return for kickbacks or illegal commissions.
García, his wife, and others have been arrested as part of the probe. It was evidence collected in this case, including documents, messages, audio recordings and of unexpected financial gains, that has opened the door to all the alleged corruption scandals surrounding the Spanish Socialists and those close to Sánchez in particular.