Witness in Badajoz trial says she was told the job 'was for Pedro Sánchez's brother' before the interview
A candidate for a senior post at the Badajoz Provincial Council has testified that she was warned days before her interview that the position was already earmarked for David Sánchez, the brother of Spain's prime minister.
The trial of David Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, brother of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, continued at the Badajoz Provincial Court with testimony that cast doubt on the fairness of his 2017 hiring as coordinator of the region's music conservatories. Cristina de Frutos, a conductor and one of eleven candidates for the post, told the court that the director of the Plasencia Conservatory sent her a WhatsApp message days before the interview stating that the job was already assigned to the prime minister's brother.
He sent me a WhatsApp a few days before the interview and told me he already knew who the job was for. That it was for Pedro Sánchez's brother.
De Frutos said her interview lasted barely fifteen minutes and the panel asked her no questions, which she described as discriminatory. When the defence asked why she did not coordinate with other candidates to file a complaint, she replied that she did not know them and decided not to pursue it.
Two sets of minutes
A central piece of evidence is the existence of two different sets of minutes evaluating the eleven candidates. On 10 July 2017, a council official emailed a version in which David Sánchez scored 90 out of 100 points and was the only candidate deemed to possess all the necessary skills and aptitudes. The other ten were uniformly described as lacking those qualities. The official version later incorporated into the file, however, shows several candidates receiving more favourable assessments, with five of them, alongside Sánchez, described as possibly possessing the required skills. Prosecutors argue the first document was designed to present Sánchez as the sole suitable candidate, while the official version was altered to give the process an appearance of greater competition.
The Carrero hiring
Testimony also focused on the 2023 hiring of Luis Carrero, a friend of David Sánchez who had worked as a communications advisor in Moncloa, the prime minister's office. Ramón Díaz, then the council's delegate for human resources and now mayor of Villanueva del Fresno, defended the creation of the post of head of cross-border activities, citing an urgent need to coordinate such programmes. He confirmed that Carrero was the only applicant and described this as normal. A Guardia Civil investigation had earlier intercepted an email from David Sánchez to Carrero dated 30 October 2023, in which Sánchez wrote about spending a week supporting Carrero once he joined, suggesting the position was treated as a foregone conclusion 23 days before it was formally filled.
In one of the emails, Carrero addresses the musician with the term 'dear little brother' and both take for granted his conversion to Head of Section before the post was put out to tender.
A new post under a different name
Ángel Seco, a technician in the council's culture department who had never previously testified, told the court that the Office of Performing Arts, to which David Sánchez was transferred in 2022, was a new post, contradicting the defence argument that it was merely a renaming of his existing coordinator role. Seco also stated that he did not work with Sánchez on a daily basis, pushing back against Sánchez's own earlier claim that they worked together every day.
Missing emails and salary questions
The court also heard from Víctor Peralta, head of technology at the council, about the deletion of emails from the corporate account of Yolanda Sánchez Baltasar, director of one of the conservatories. Up to 127 emails were found to have been emptied from her account, including messages from March and May 2017 that investigators consider highly relevant. The council's comptroller general, Ángel Díaz Mancha, testified that David Sánchez's salary was in line with other equivalent managerial posts and that changes to job titles were relatively frequent within the institution. Nine Guardia Civil officers are scheduled to testify on Wednesday, followed by the accused themselves.
- Email about the Culture department organigram is sent; later found deleted from director's account.
- Email with subject 'El hermanísimo' sent on the day the job competition rules are published.
- First set of minutes drafted: David Sánchez is the only candidate deemed suitable.
- Official sends an email containing the first version of the evaluation minutes.
- David Sánchez moves to the newly created Office of Performing Arts.
- David Sánchez emails Luis Carrero treating his future appointment as a given.
- Post of Head of Cross-Border Activities is created; Carrero is the sole applicant.
- Guardia Civil raids the Badajoz Provincial Council and seizes corporate emails.
- Trial hears testimony from Cristina de Frutos, Ángel Seco, and council officials.
What comes next
The trial, which involves eleven defendants facing charges of prevarication and influence peddling, continues with testimony from Guardia Civil agents before the accused take the stand. The case has drawn sustained national attention because of the family connection to the prime minister and the questions it raises about hiring practices in public institutions controlled by his party.
