Spain's Supreme Court Opens High-Profile 'Mask Case' Corruption Trial

Spain's Supreme Court will open the trial of former transport minister José Luis Ábalos, his former advisor Koldo García Izaguirre, and businessman Víctor de Aldama on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in a corruption case centered on alleged illegal commissions from pandemic-era contracts for sanitary material valued at 54 (million euros) — value of mask contracts at center of corruption case. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is seeking 24 years in prison for Ábalos, 19 years and six months for Koldo García, and seven years for De Aldama, who received a reduced request in exchange for cooperating with investigators. Both Ábalos and Koldo García have been held in pretrial detention since November 27, 2025, and will arrive at the court from Soto del Real prison in Madrid. The proceedings are expected to run through April 30, comprising 23 sessions across 13 days and more than 100 hours of hearings, with the three defendants scheduled to testify on April 28.

Alleged bribes, luxury homes, and monthly cash payments The case, widely known in Spain as the "Koldo case" or "mask case," centers on allegations that Ábalos and Koldo García facilitated government contracts worth approximately 53 million euros to the company Soluciones de Gestión, represented by De Aldama, in exchange for a stream of bribes during the worst months of the 2020 pandemic. According to the investigation, De Aldama allegedly paid Koldo García up to 10,000 euros per month in cash between 2019 and 2021, funds that García allegedly shared with Ábalos. The businessman also allegedly arranged a luxury vacation home in La Alcaidesa, near Sotogrande in Cádiz, for Ábalos and his family, and allegedly paid — through partners — the rent on an apartment in Madrid's central Plaza de España for the politician's companion, Jésica Rodríguez. De Aldama, who has confessed to the facts and provided evidence of the alleged bribes, described his monthly payments to investigators in blunt terms. „Giving 10,000 euros monthly to a person who is telling you that he is going to get you public contracts is derisory when we are talking about millions of euros in public contracts. I mean, it was like a kind of good faith on my part to deliver that for a future benefit” — Víctor de Aldama via eldiario.es The charges against Ábalos and Koldo García include criminal organization, bribery, influence peddling, use of privileged information, and embezzlement of public funds, with the two men together facing a combined potential sentence of up to 50 years, alongside fines exceeding 3.7 million euros.

The Koldo case emerged from a broader investigation into pandemic procurement in Spain, when it became known that the Ministry of Transport under Ábalos had awarded contracts for masks and other sanitary material to Soluciones de Gestión during the acute phase of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. The scandal led to Ábalos's departure from the PSOE, where he had served as Secretary of Organization, and his subsequent resignation from his seat in the Spanish Congress. Santos Cerdán León, another former PSOE Secretary of Organization, was arrested on June 30, 2025, at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and remains under investigation in the National Court alongside Ábalos in a related but separate proceeding. The case has generated sustained political pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose government has denied allegations that Sánchez personally warned Ábalos that Koldo García was under investigation before that information became public.

Kitchen case opens simultaneously, implicating former PP interior minister The Ábalos trial opens on the same day as a separate and politically significant proceeding in the National Court, where the so-called Kitchen case goes to trial, creating what commentators have described as a symbolic double proceeding against corruption touching both of Spain's major parties. The main defendants in the Kitchen case include former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and former Secretary of State Francisco Martínez, along with former police commissioner José Villarejo and senior National Police officials including Eugenio Pino, who served as the DAO. The Kitchen case centers on allegations that operatives linked to the Interior Ministry under Mariano Rajoy's government conducted illegal surveillance of Luis Bárcenas — the former PP treasurer convicted in the Gürtel corruption case — including unauthorized access to his computers and mobile phones, in an effort to obstruct the judicial investigation into the PP's alleged parallel accounting. The simultaneous opening of both trials has intensified political crossfire between the PP and PSOE, with each party seeking to frame the other as bearing greater political responsibility for the respective scandals. The government has rejected claims that Sánchez tipped off Ábalos about the investigation, stating in a formal parliamentary response on February 18 that such assertions were "entirely lacking in veracity."

Sánchez's political exposure deepens as judicial calendar fills The opening of the Ábalos trial marks the beginning of what analysts quoted in Spanish media have called a judicial "black spring" for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose government faces a crowded calendar of legally sensitive proceedings in the weeks ahead. Sánchez's brother, David Sánchez, is expected to appear before a court at the end of May, while the investigation into Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez, is reportedly being pushed toward closure by the presiding judge before his retirement in September. Santos Cerdán, the former PSOE Secretary of Organization arrested in mid-2025, remains under investigation in the National Court for alleged rigging of public awards in exchange for commissions, and separate inquiries into alleged cash payments at the party's Ferraz headquarters continue. The government has consistently declined to comment on what it describes as "journalistic information," and the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court archived a complaint in January related to the alleged leak of investigation details to Ábalos. The Ábalos trial, which will include testimony from more than 100 witnesses over the course of the month, is set to place the former minister — once described as Sánchez's most trusted political operative — at the center of public attention for weeks, with his testimony scheduled for April 28 alongside that of Koldo García and De Aldama.