Zapatero appeals judge's 'blank cheque' to police in Plus Ultra case, calling bank account probe a 'fishing expedition'

The appeal

Former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has appealed a judicial order that granted the National Police's Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) broad authority to investigate his personal bank accounts and those of his family. The appeal, filed on Monday by his lawyer Víctor Moreno, targets a ruling issued last week by National Court judge José Luis Calama in the so-called 'Plus Ultra case'. Zapatero's defence argues that authorising the UDEF to "amplify the information it considers pertinent" amounts to a "blank delegation" that threatens fundamental rights.

The investigation must focus on concrete facts and not become a fishing expedition.

The appeal specifically challenges the scope of the police unit's mandate, which covers accounts held by Zapatero, his daughters Alba and Laura, his secretary Gertrudis Alcázar, and his business partner Julio Martínez, who owns Análisis Relevante, one of the companies under suspicion. The judge also ordered the creation of a separate case file to hold the banking documentation.

Scope and timeframe

The defence objects to the temporal scope of the order, which covers banking records from 2020 to the present. Zapatero's lawyer argues the probe should be capped at December 2025, stating that "the facts the UDEF seeks to cross-check are bank movements that would extend at most until December 2025 in some cases." The appeal describes the resulting data as "a complete financial photograph of six and a half years of the life of six individuals and thirteen companies."

There is no understanding of the proportionality or utility of obtaining information beyond this date.

The lawyer also requests that the order's extension to "internal communications of the entity and with the client" be annulled, arguing that such material goes beyond proper banking data.

Defence rights and privacy concerns

A central argument in the appeal is that allowing the UDEF to decide what information is relevant effectively lets the same police unit that holds the accusatory hypothesis determine what material enters the case file. The defence warns this creates "an evident impact on the right to defence," as parties would only access what the UDEF chooses to cite in its report, while material favourable to the investigated parties could be excluded from the proceedings.

It seems that the same police unit that sustains the accusatory hypothesis will materially decide what is relevant and what is not.

The appeal also raises privacy risks, citing what it calls a "proven pattern" of leaks to media outlets of material from the case, including Zapatero's personal agendas. The defence argues that collecting six and a half years of complete banking data carries "a real and not hypothetical risk of public exposure of intimate data unrelated to the proceedings."

What Zapatero is requesting

The appeal asks Judge Calama to provisionally suspend the authorisation granted to the UDEF, at least until the appeal itself is resolved. It also requests that any additional information gathered by the police unit require prior judicial authorisation, and that the task of filtering and removing irrelevant or privacy-sensitive data from the separate case file be assigned to the court clerk under the judge's supervision, rather than to the police. The defence insists it is not seeking to block the collection of additional documentation, only that it be obtained with a reasoned judicial order.