PSOE Requests Preventive Prison for Former Security Officials Ahead of Kitchen Trial

The PSOE requested on Monday that the National Court order the provisional imprisonment of Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security under Mariano Rajoy's government, and former Commissioner Andrés Gómez Gordo, days before the Operation Kitchen trial opens on April 6, 2026. The socialists, acting as popular prosecution in the case, argued that the imminent start of the hearing has significantly increased the flight risk for both defendants. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is seeking 15 (years in prison) — sentence requested for Martínez and Gómez Gordo for each defendant. The PSOE submitted the petition to the National Court on March 30, 2026, citing four converging factors that it said elevated the risk of flight: the severity of the sentences requested, the trial's imminence, the defendants' involvement in additional legal proceedings, and suspicion of hidden sources of financing. Neither Martínez nor Gómez Gordo had previously been held in provisional prison specifically for the Kitchen case, according to reporting by El País.

Martínez's Mexico ties and cyberattack case fuel PSOE argument The PSOE's brief focused heavily on Francisco Martínez, describing a pattern of legal exposure stretching more than a decade. Martínez, who served as Secretary of State for Security between 2013 and 2016, faces charges in the Kitchen trial including embezzlement of public funds, membership in a criminal organization, crimes against privacy, revelation of secrets, and bribery. The socialists noted that Martínez is married to a Mexican national and regularly travels to Mexico for family reasons, which they cited as a concrete flight risk factor. They also recalled that Martínez was held in preventive prison until June 2025 in connection with a separate case involving an alleged criminal network that carried out cyberattacks against Spanish public administration databases, led by a hacker known as Alcasec. He is additionally under investigation in a case before Judge Santiago Pedraz concerning alleged police operations against the Podemos party, referred to as the "patriotic police" case. The PSOE argued that Martínez, despite his legal situation, continues to hold the status of letrado de las Cortes — a parliamentary lawyer — though currently on leave and working as a private attorney, and questioned how his public salary could cover frequent international travel, family obligations, and legal defense costs across three complex criminal cases simultaneously. The party concluded that a potential conviction stripping him of his civil servant status would remove his primary professional tie to Spain, further increasing the incentive to flee.

Gómez Gordo already convicted in separate case, faces disqualification The PSOE's request for provisional imprisonment also targeted Andrés Gómez Gordo, a former police commissioner who served as an advisor to María Dolores de Cospedal, former Secretary General of the People's Party. In the Kitchen trial, Gómez Gordo is accused of recruiting Sergio Ríos Esgueva, the driver of former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas and his partner, as a paid informant using classified funds, with the aim of obtaining sensitive information about the party. According to reporting by La Razón, Gómez Gordo left his advisory post to rejoin the Police and directly oversee the driver's activities. The PSOE brief noted that Gómez Gordo had already been convicted in the so-called City of Justice case as a cooperator in a continued crime of administrative malfeasance in concurrence with aggravated embezzlement, receiving a sentence of three years and six months in prison, with that sentence still pending finality. The socialists argued that a judicial resolution had already specified a sentence of disqualification for Gómez Gordo, which would effectively sever his professional link to Spain as a member of the National Police, compounding the flight risk. As with Martínez, the PSOE also raised suspicion that Gómez Gordo possessed undisclosed sources of income, pointing to his continued retention of a prominent law firm for his defense despite his legal and financial circumstances.

Trial opens April 6 with a dozen defendants and six years of investigation The Kitchen trial, set to begin at the National Court on April 6, 2026, will place approximately a dozen individuals in the dock, according to multiple Spanish media outlets. Among the main defendants alongside Martínez and Gómez Gordo is Jorge Fernández Díaz, former Minister of the Interior under Mariano Rajoy, for whom the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is also requesting 15 years in prison. Eugenio Pino, former Deputy Operational Director of the National Police, faces the same sentencing request. Operation Kitchen centers on events from 2013, when Luis Bárcenas, former treasurer of Spain's ruling People's Party, was under judicial investigation in the Gürtel corruption case. The PP was eventually convicted in the Gürtel case. According to the source articles, the alleged parapolice operation used classified funds from the Interior Ministry to finance surveillance of Bárcenas and an attempt to steal electronic devices belonging to him and his partner. Investigating judge Manuel García-Castellón conducted a confrontation between Fernández Díaz and Martínez at the National Court on November 13, 2020, during which both offered contradictory accounts under questioning. The trial's central tension, as described by El País, will revolve around the conflicting positions maintained by Fernández Díaz and Martínez since that 2020 confrontation: the former minister has consistently denied any knowledge of the espionage operation, while Martínez has presented telephone messages he claims to have received from Fernández Díaz that suggest the minister was aware of the operation's details, including the recruitment of Bárcenas' driver and the extraction of data from two iPhones and an iPad. The PSOE's last-minute imprisonment request drew a parallel to the Supreme Court's decision to imprison former minister José Luis Ábalos in a separate case, in which the imminence of trial was also cited as a factor elevating flight risk.

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