A Badajoz judge has charged nine people with hiring one of them, David Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, brother of the current President of the Government, as temporary staff. The rest are personnel linked to the Badajoz Provincial Council, including its president, due to suspicions that in 2016 they created a tailor-made position for the brother of someone who was then exhausting his days in his first stage at the head of the PSOE.
The investigation focuses on determining whether the musician David Sánchez, composer and conductor with international experience, became “coordinator of activities of the conservatories” dependent on the Badajoz Provincial Council because, regardless of his merits, he is the brother of the general secretary. of the PSOE. The Civil Guard slips, without specifying, that the position could have been created to hire David Sánchez despite the fact that there were other priorities.
Last May, the far-right organization Clean Hands filed a complaint before the courts of Badajoz based, as it would also do in the case of Begoña Gómez, on journalistic information with major errors. Six months later, the agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO), an elite unit of the armed institute, continue to delve deeper into the process of creating the position of “coordination of activities of music conservatories.”
The Anti-Corruption agents have spent hours and hours reading 56,385 emails that have made them experts in the musical needs of Badajoz, although they have not yet been able to conclude that the job that David Sánchez Pérez-Castejón later won in the contest was created with spurious interests.
At this point, Judge Beatriz Biedma has summoned the musician, the president of the Foundation and seven officials and employees of the Provincial Council as being investigated to undo the mess. The statement by Pedro Sánchez’s brother is scheduled for January 9.
“You ask for a lot of staff”
Between September and October 2016 – the agents explain in their latest 453-page report – the Badajoz Provincial Council anticipated what positions it should create to satisfy the musical needs of Badajoz in the following year.
On October 5, the deputy delegate of the Culture Area delivered to the president of the Provincial Council a proposal that did not include the need for someone to coordinate the two provincial conservatories. Even without that proposal, the president of the Provincial Council himself, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, already assessed that there was an excess of hiring in the 2017 forecast: “It seems to me that you are asking for a lot of staff.”
In the following days an event occurred that upset the investigators and that has made many headlines once the secrecy that weighed on the summary was lifted. On October 8, the head of Human Resources sent an email to the Director of the Presidency and two other officials of the organization which already includes “documentation on the creation of a senior management position within the higher music conservatory, classifying him as ‘manager ‘”.
The agents highlight that this occurs three days after the creation of that position was not valued and the president of the Provincial Council complained about excessive hiring of personnel. From that moment on, emails between those investigated already include the newly created figure, while developing its functions and budget for it.
In the intercepted emails, the directors of the conservatories wonder “what the person who will occupy the newly created position can manage and coordinate.” The civil guards highlight in their report that these directors had not requested the creation of a coordinator who would be above them and coordinate, but that when asked, they both drafted a document with their possible functions. “While this new incorporation is appreciated, there are other essential needs,” one of them had put in a message to the deputation.
Civil guards and pianists
In the analysis of the emails, the civil guards have found one that talks about the “lack of accompanying pianists” and that requests the creation of a position for that position. In another, it is proposed that a violin teacher be hired, also someone to move furniture or that the flamenco specialty be implemented. But there is no trace, the civil guards highlight, of a coordinator of the two conservatories dependent on the Provincial Council.
Once the creation of the position has been approved, the next point to clarify is the selection of David Sánchez Pérez-Castejón among nine candidates. The UCO report does not delve into the conditions of the president’s brother compared to the other candidates. In the table that summarizes the merits of all of them, it stands out that David Sánchez competes with two other candidates who, among the nine candidates, have a higher degree in music. Unlike them, David Sánchez adds a second degree to his musical training, that of Economics and Business Sciences.
David Sánchez Pérez-Castejón signed the contract with the Provincial Council on July 10, 2017, when his brother had already regained the General Secretariat of the PSOE, but no one predicted that he would become President of the Government a year later. David would earn 3,495.93 euros gross per month and would have two extra payments.
The Manos Cleans complaint that gave rise to the case includes a hoax published by Vozpópuli or The Objective, the media that attributed a subsidy to Begoña Gómez that had actually been granted to another woman with the same name. Among the assets attributed to the musician, these media included 1.4 million euros in BBVA shares.
The elite unit of the Civil Guard has had to dedicate part of its effort to verifying whether what is contained in the complaint that collects this information, and which gives rise to the case, is true, and they have ended up concluding that there is “no evidence that “The person under investigation declares that he owns a number of BBVA shares that reach the aforementioned value” in his income tax returns. The Tax Agency report also refutes this information, they add.
Dedicated to the task of journalistic correction, the agents explain that in Sánchez’s income tax return corresponding to the years 2017, 2019 and 2021, in the “nominal value” field the unit of measurement is reflected in euros, while in the of 2022 and 2023, this unit is not specified, so the aforementioned media would have interpreted that it was a number of shares and not their value in euros.
The complaint by Clean Hands against David Sánchez pointed out crimes against the Public Treasury, embezzlement and fraud. The indictment of the president’s brother and eight other people, once the UCO reports were presented, only refers to crimes against the Public Administration.
The ultra organization was more ambitious and went so far as to attach information from El Debate with the following headline: “The Aldama plot diverted bribes to companies in the small Portuguese town where Sánchez’s brother lives.” Challenged by this “exclusive”, the pseudo-union reasoned in its complaint: “If we do numbers, it does not seem that this fact is very coincidental. Elvas has a population of 16,084 inhabitants while Portugal has 10,352,042. Elvas represents, therefore, 0.15% of the Portuguese population. With this percentage, your honor will know how to assess whether it is a coincidence or not that the residence of Begoña Gómez’s brother-in-law coincides in Elvas with the bank where Begoña Gómez’s friend diverted the bribes for the sale of masks.
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