Spanish
PM’s wife to stand trial on corruption charges and banned from leaving country
Begoña
Gómez has been ordered to surrender her passport as her husband, Pedro Sánchez,
says the case is politically motivated
Oliver
Holmes and agencies
Sat 20
Jun 2026 16.55 CEST
A judge
in Spain has ruled that the wife of socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez must
stand trial on corruption charges and has banned her from leaving the country.
Begoña
Gómez had previously been charged after a two-year investigation with
embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and
misappropriation of funds.
Gómez,
55, denies any wrongdoing in the case, which was triggered by a complaint from
the group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), a self-styled trade union with far-right
links.
The judge
in the case, Juan Carlos Peinado, ordered Gómez to surrender her passport, barred her from leaving Spain and required her to report to
court twice a month,
according to a court order released on Saturday. She will face trial by jury on
an unspecified date.
Sánchez
had repeatedly dismissed the case against his wife as a baseless and
politically motivated smear. The prime minister, an outspoken leftist leader in
Europe, has accused his political and media opponents of pursuing his family
and has also openly questioned the impartiality of some members of the
judiciary.
The
Socialist party quickly reacted to the judge’s ruling, posting on X: “(Begoña)
has been subjected to judicial and political persecution for two
years. Today’s
development is another step in that process.”
The case
is one of a series of corruption investigations that have plagued Sánchez, who
came to power in 2018 by promising to end the graft that had mired the ruling
conservative People’s party (PP).
Now,
several investigations into Sánchez’s family and former top political allies
threaten to topple the government.
Sánchez
has not been named in any of the cases but his brother, David, is accused of
influence peddling while the former transport minister, José Luis Ábalos, is
accused of taking kickbacks on public contracts. Both deny the accusations.
One of
the most potentially damaging cases is against former socialist prime minister
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – a titan of the Spanish left – who was placed
under investigation last month for alleged influence peddling.
Zapatero,
who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2011, defended his innocence during
hearings this week.
Reuters
and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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