On the record

Leire Díez is the protagonist of the latest corruption scandal to affect Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez, writes columnist Mark Naylor

Mark Nayler

Malaga

Friday, 6 June 2025, 11:29

Until a few days ago, hardly anyone had heard of Leire Díez. Born in the Basque town of Portugalete in 1975, Díez studied Social Sciences at the University of the Basque Country, specialising in journalism. Between 2011 and 2014, she served as the Socialist vice-president of Vega de Paz, a Cantabrian village with fewer than a thousand residents. Díez has also worked for Correos and Enusa, a public company in the nuclear sector, acting as the latter's communications boss between 2018 and 2021.

Now branded as the Socialist party's 'plumber', Díez is the protagonist of the latest corruption scandal to affect Pedro Sánchez. In a 53-minute recording of a Zoom call released by El Confidencial on 29 May, Díez is allegedly heard requesting compromising information on Colonel Antonio Balas, head of the Guardia Civil's economic crime department, which is leading several probes into Sánchez's inner-circle (including those into his wife and brother, as well as the Koldo case).

The recipient of Díez's request was reportedly Alejandro Hamlyn, a businessman who joined the Zoom meeting from Dubai. Díez allegedly assured Hamlyn, who was arrested by the Guardia Civil in April 2019 in connection with a hydrocarbon fraud investigation, that the state could ease his legal troubles in exchange for dirt on Balas.

The PP has accused the Socialists of waging a "dirty war" on Spain's top anti-corruption investigators, and called for an early general election in the hope that it would topple Sánchez. Emiliano García-Page, the Socialist president of Castilla-La Mancha, has also demanded that the next national vote be brought forward, so that the Díez scandal doesn't harm the PSOE's performance in the regions.

In a press conference on Wednesday morning, described by PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo as a piece of "shameful theatre", Díez denied that she had requested incriminating information on behalf of the Socialists; instead, she claimed to have been researching a book, and working entirely in a freelance capacity. No questions were permitted after she'd read out her statement - a self-defeating tactic also used by Sánchez.

Díez has never worked as an investigative journalist before, nor has she written any previous books. So who's publishing her first, and when's it due out? Why is she targeting Balas specifically? Why did she request to be let go from the Socialist party during a two-hour meeting at the PSOE headquarters this week? And how, if she is working in a freelance capacity, was she allegedly able to offer Hamyln legal help in exchange for information? Díez, like Sánchez, seems not to have realised that forbidding questions after a press conference only guarantees their multiplication, not their disappearance.

Top 50

Esta funcionalidad es exclusiva para registrados.

Reporta un error en esta noticia