PSOE Takes PP and OkDiario to Prosecutors Over Koldo García Legal Fees

Spain’s governing Socialist party, the PSOE, has filed a complaint with the Fiscalía General (the State Attorney General’s office) against the opposition Partido Popular (PP) and the news site OkDiario over money paid toward the legal defense of Koldo García. García was an adviser to former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and is in prison over the face-mask corruption case.

The complaint was filed on Friday, the first official day of the election campaign, according to El Nacional. The PSOE says the payments may have been an attempt to get García to give false testimony in court that would implicate Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The PP and OkDiario deny any wrongdoing.

Who the complaint names

According to El Nacional, which saw the document, the complaint targets OkDiario director Eduardo Inda; Dos Mil Palabras SL, the company that publishes the site; Alberto Durán, a lawyer for the PP; and the PP itself as a legal entity. The party lists possible offenses including bribery, influence peddling, obstruction of justice, falsifying commercial documents, abuse of office and embezzlement.

It asks prosecutors to open an inquiry and to take statements from Durán, Inda and the legal representatives of Dos Mil Palabras and the PP. It also wants García heard as a witness and asked to hand over his original recordings.

The PSOE’s case: invoices and recordings

Reports differ on the amount. 3Cat says the complaint puts the total at at least 240 thousand euros, paid in two invoices: 181.5 thousand euros on Nov. 27, 2025, and 60.5 thousand euros on Jan. 23, 2026. El Nacional reports 242 thousand euros paid to the firm IDBO Consultants, where lawyer Leticia de la Hoz works, in invoices of 150 thousand euros plus VAT and 50 thousand euros plus VAT on the same dates. The invoices describe fees and expenses for legal advice and proceedings on García’s behalf. De la Hoz gave them to the Audiencia Nacional (Spain’s national criminal court) at the request of a judge who is investigating her in a separate case.

De la Hoz represented García until Nov. 10. She stepped down citing “professional reasons” that she said are protected by professional secrecy.

In recordings aired by Cadena SER on Nov. 5, García says Durán met him in May 2025 at an office near the PP’s Génova 13 headquarters. By his account, the lawyer offered a reduced sentence that would keep him out of prison, removal of his family from the case, payment of his defense and a million euros. In return he was to make statements against people in government, above all Sánchez, his wife Begoña Gómez and former Prime Minister Zapatero. García says the money was to go through Inda and his company, and that Inda told him it would be recovered through institutional advertising from regional governments run by the PP.

The complaint also cites PP official Cuca Gamarra, who confirmed on Nov. 9 that Durán and García had met but denied that any money was offered.

The PP and OkDiario’s response

OkDiario says the money paid for the rights to a book and a docuseries and had nothing to do with García’s defense. On Oct. 30 the site published parts of a collaboration contract it signed with García, dated Nov. 26, 2025, in Madrid. The PSOE points out that the contract is dated the day before the first payment and argues that comparing it with the invoices could expose a sham arrangement.

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo told the program The Wild Project that his party had not offered money to anyone or authorized anyone to do so, not a million and not a single euro. He called the report false and said the PP had requested a formal conciliation proceeding with the journalist who published it. The party has also filed a complaint against the television channel that, in his words, backed the defamation.

What’s at stake

The dispute keeps the Koldo case in the headlines as the campaign begins. On Friday, the agency EFE published a police report from a separate part of the investigation, unsealed on Thursday by Audiencia Nacional judge Ismael Moreno. It says Cristian Corvillo, the businessman who drove Sánchez’s car during the 2017 PSOE primaries, used García to help companies win contracts from public bodies under the Transport Ministry. Corvillo was arrested last week.

Investigators from the Guardia Civil are examining three contracts from Ábalos’s time as minister: two from Adif (Spain’s rail infrastructure agency) in 2019, worth 28 million euros and a second, much smaller contract, and one from SEITT worth 6.18 million euros for maintenance of the AP-7 motorway. In a message dated Dec. 12, 2018, García promised Corvillo he would sort his life out, according to the report.

Sources: 3Cat 324, go.eln.cat