Magistrate José Luis Calama has rejected halting Tax Authority actions against former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, his family and friend Julio Martínez Martínez.
The Audiencia Nacional judge explained that his investigation in the Plus Ultra case focuses on aspects different from the tax inspection. It covers the 2022 to 2024 tax years and affects Zapatero, his wife Sonsoles Espinosa, his daughters and the company What The Fav, as well as Martínez Martínez and his companies.
Calama followed the criterion of the Anticorruption Prosecutor, which firmly opposed the suspension due to the absence of correspondence between the two investigations. The Tax Authority delegations in Madrid and Valencia had requested the halt at the end of June.
The former president and his daughters argued for suspension, considering that the facts partially coincide. The magistrate rejected that thesis and recalled that current law allows coexistence of administrative and criminal actions, reserving suspension for exceptional cases.
