{"id":750452,"date":"2026-06-21T08:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/750452\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T08:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:23:15","slug":"spanish-pms-wife-to-stand-trial-on-corruption-charges-and-banned-from-leaving-country-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/750452\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish PM\u2019s wife to stand trial on corruption charges and banned from leaving country | Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge in Spain has ruled that the wife of socialist prime minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a> must stand trial on corruption charges and has banned her from leaving the country.<\/p>\n

Bego\u00f1a G\u00f3mez had previously been charged<\/a> after a two-year investigation with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds.<\/p>\n

G\u00f3mez, 55, denies any wrongdoing in the case, which was triggered by a complaint from the group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), a self-styled trade union with far-right links.<\/p>\n

The judge in the case, Juan Carlos Peinado, ordered G\u00f3mez to surrender \u200bher passport, barred her \u200cfrom leaving \u200cSpain and required her to report to court twice a \u200cmonth, according to a court order released on Saturday. She will face trial by jury on an unspecified date.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez had repeatedly dismissed the case against his wife as a baseless and politically motivated smear<\/a>. The prime minister, an outspoken leftist leader in Europe, has accused his political and media opponents of pursuing his family and has also openly questioned the impartiality of some members of the judiciary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Socialist party quickly reacted to the judge\u2019s ruling, posting on X: \u201c(Bego\u00f1a) has been \u200bsubjected to judicial and political persecution for two years. Today\u2019s development is another step in that process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s former socialist prime minister Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero arriving at court in Madrid this week. Photograph: Jose Ignacio Viseras\/GTRES\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The case is one of a series of corruption investigations<\/a> that have plagued S\u00e1nchez, who came to power in 2018 by promising to end the graft that had mired<\/a> the ruling conservative People\u2019s party (PP).<\/p>\n

Now, several investigations into S\u00e1nchez\u2019s family and former top political allies threaten to topple the government.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez has not been named in any of the \u200ccases but his brother, David, is accused of influence peddling while the former transport minister, Jos\u00e9 Luis \u00c1balos, is accused of taking kickbacks on public contracts<\/a>. Both deny the accusations.<\/p>\n

One of the most potentially damaging cases is against former socialist prime minister Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero \u2013 a titan of the Spanish left \u2013 who was placed under investigation<\/a> last month for alleged influence peddling.<\/p>\n

Zapatero, who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2011, defended his innocence during hearings this week.<\/p>\n

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge in Spain has ruled that the wife of socialist prime minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez must stand trial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-750452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}