Pablo Iglesias is suspected, inter alia, of disclosing secret data and defamation.
A Spanish judge asked the country’s Supreme Court (SC) to open an investigation into the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the left-wing Podemos party (“We can”), Pablo Iglesias. This was stated in a ruling issued by the Spanish National Court of Justice on Wednesday.
The document notes that Judge Manuel García Castelno “has submitted a substantiated statement to the Supreme Court to open an investigation against Vice Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias on suspicion of disclosing classified information, <…> libel or false accusation and/or simulation of a crime in the case of the theft of his former consultant Dina Buselham’s phone”.
In 2015, a mobile phone was stolen from Buselham and the woman reported it to the police. After another case of former police inspector Jose Manuel Villarejo was apprehended, it turned out that he had images from a stolen phone card. As a result, an investigation was opened into whether Villerejo had been following the Podemos.
Iglesias first acted as the victim, but then it became known that the party leader had a mobile phone memory card for Buselham, which the journalist gave him. It had been in Iglesias’ possession for a long time and he had not notified the owner of the stolen phone. The judge does not rule out that the politician used this situation to achieve certain electoral advantages.
Pablo Iglesias took office in the Spanish coalition government in January 2020.