Former Spanish minister José Luis Ábalos jailed 24 years in mask contract corruption case
José Luis Ábalos, once the organisational chief of Spain's ruling Socialist Party, was sentenced to 24 years in prison by the Supreme Court on Monday for running a criminal scheme that awarded emergency face mask contracts during the pandemic in exchange for cash and personal perks.
The sentencing
On Monday, Spain's Supreme Court handed down its verdict in a corruption trial that has severely shaken the country's left-wing government. José Luis Ábalos, 66, former transport minister and former No. 2 in the Socialist Party (PSOE), was found guilty of criminal organization, bribery, embezzlement, and influence peddling. He received a 24-year prison term. His former adviser Koldo García was sentenced to 19 years. Businessman Víctor de Aldama, who cooperated with investigators, received a four-and-a-half-year suspended sentence, conditional on not reoffending, submitting biannual activity reports, and completing one year of community service. The court's ruling, adopted unanimously, found that the three men formed a criminal organisation with a clear division of roles to profit illegally from public contracts.
- José Luis Ábalos
- 24 years
- Koldo García
- 19 years
- Víctor de Aldama
- 4.5 years
How the scheme worked
The corruption centred on contracts to supply some 13 million face masks at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The contracts were awarded to two state-owned entities (Puertos del Estado and railway operator Adif) through a company linked to de Aldama. In return, Ábalos received a stream of personal benefits: a monthly payment of €10,000 to promote business interests, family holidays, favours granted to his mistresses, and even the payment of prostitutes, according to the court's findings. Both Ábalos and García had denied the charges during the trial and have been in pre-trial detention for several months.
A widening scandal around Pedro Sánchez
The Ábalos verdict is the first in a series of graft cases that have plagued the entourage of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Sánchez came to power in 2018 after ousting a conservative government mired in corruption, promising to clean up politics. Now his own circle is under judicial siege. His brother David Sánchez was indicted for influence peddling linked to his hiring by a regional government. In April, his wife Begoña Gómez was charged with corruption in a separate long-running case; on Saturday, a court banned her from leaving the country. At the end of May, investigators raided the PSOE's Madrid headquarters in a probe into an alleged secret unit tasked with interfering in investigations involving the prime minister's associates. All have denied wrongdoing.
Political pressure mounts
Sánchez has not been named as a defendant in any of the cases and insists they are part of a campaign to force him from office. During the trial, de Aldama claimed that Sánchez himself was the leader of the "organised gang" and that the PSOE had benefited from illegal commissions.
Pedro Sánchez was the leader of the "organised gang" at the head of the network and the Socialist Party benefited from illegal financing through these commissions.
The prime minister has consistently rejected any link between the three convicts and party funds and says he knew nothing of their fraudulent activities. Nevertheless, the affair has become a running sore for his minority government. The opposition has kept up intense pressure, and Sánchez is scheduled to make a highly anticipated speech before parliament on Wednesday to address the string of judicial cases.
What comes next
The verdict can be appealed, but it already marks a profound fall for Ábalos, once the most powerful organiser inside the PSOE and a key figure in Sánchez's rise. For the prime minister, the political cost is piling up at a time when his administration is reliant on fragile parliamentary alliances. The speech on Wednesday will be closely watched as a test of whether he can contain the damage.
