Judge Biedma urges Spain's National Court to probe alleged drug clan intimidation plot

Appeal over intimidation claims

Judge Beatriz Biedma of Badajoz has lodged a formal appeal before Spain's National Court, seeking to expand the judicial inquiry into alleged illicit operations against her. National Court magistrate Santiago Pedraz had agreed to admit Biedma as an injured party solely concerning alleged slander and calumny, while rejecting an investigation into whether a network attempted to hire local criminals to intimidate her. Biedma previously instructed the prevarication case against David Sánchez, the brother of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, which resulted in a nine-year disqualification from public office regarding a post at the Badajoz Provincial Council. The magistrate argued that the activities directed by former socialist party member Leire Díez sought to disrupt judicial proceedings affecting the government and associates of the prime minister. Pedraz had stated that Biedma appeared to know about the intimidation plots through media reports rather than direct coercion, prompting Biedma to clarify her standing.

Drug clan contacts and the 2024 homicide

The dispute centers on evidence connecting Díez's associates to a narcotics clan in Badajoz known as Los Rochos. An entry dated 25 March 2025 in a notebook belonging to Díez read, "Judge of Badajoz. La Celsa. Heroin or gypsy." Biedma noted that Jesús Rocho Sosa, the leader of the clan, was shot dead in Badajoz on 30 December 2024 while Biedma was on judicial duty and leading the David Sánchez inquiry. The deceased was the father of Cintia Rocho, also known as La Celsa, who publicly stated that two men approached her to act against the judge in exchange for favorable treatment from prosecutors in pending criminal proceedings.

In a television interview with Telecinco, Cintia Rocho explained that the intermediaries, identified as former judge Luis José Sáenz de Tejada and an attorney, provided Biedma's residential address alongside photographs of the magistrate and her daughters.

I understand that if they gave me her address, wanting me to go to her house, it was not for anything good.

Cintia Rocho, whose husband was murdered in a cafeteria seven months prior to her father's shooting, rejected the solicitation. Investigators from the Guardia Civil's Central Operative Unit travelled to Badajoz in late September 2026 to take statements from clan members.

Online campaign and witness protection

In her submission to the National Court, Biedma provided links to roughly one hundred videos published on the YouTube channel Magistrado Anticorrupción TV by Sáenz de Tejada. The group, known internally as "Vacaciones y Viajes", had formed in August 2024 to coordinate actions against judicial officials. The recordings labelled Biedma as lazy, cynical, cowardly, and an asymptomatic Cordoban, while asserting that she served partisan interests and had been condemned for violating fundamental rights. That claim stemmed from a Constitutional Court ruling that accepted a habeas corpus appeal from another son of Jesús Rocho after Biedma had denied it. Addressing Pedraz's concerns about evidence, Biedma explained that she withheld the identities of her witnesses in her 16 September 2026 complaint to shield them from media exposure and external pressure. Pedraz has summoned Biedma to testify as an injured party on 8 October 2026.