Spanish PM’s former right-hand man jailed for 24 years for corruption

Spain’s supreme court has jailed the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos for 24 years for taking bribes on public contracts for sanitary equipment such as ‌face masks during the Covid pandemic. Ábalos’s aide, Koldo García, was jailed for 19 years in a trial that is one of several scandals to have enveloped the government of Pedro Sánchez over recent months. The case is seen as particularly damaging for Sánchez because Ábalos was his trusted right-hand man for many years. Ábalos and Koldo heard the sentencing via video-conference in the Madrid prison where they have both been held in preventive custody since November. Presided over by seven judges, the court heard evidence from public officials, civil servants, expert witnesses and police, and found Ábalos and García guilty of being part of a criminal organisation, bribery, misuse of public funds, money laundering and influence peddling. The court concluded that “the seriousness of the charges derives from the fact that they erode the fundamentals of a democratic state and distort the purpose of public power into an instrument at the service of individual interests”. The sentencing comes two days after a separate court ruled that Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, who faces corruption and influence-peddling charges, is a flight risk and must hand over her passport . …