THE far-right trade union which filed legal proceedings against Begoña Gomez, the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has admitted that its complaint may be based on ‘fake news’.
A Spanish court opened a preliminary probe into the activities of Gomez on Wednesday after the anti-corruption body Manos Limpias – ‘clean hands’ in English – filed a complaint against the 49-year-old consultant, accusing her of ‘influence peddling’.
The move led to a shock announcement last night as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced he would be taking a break from public duties to ‘stop and reflect’ whether he wanted to continue in the role after what he described as a witch hunt and personal smear campaign from the ‘right-wing and far-right’.
Manos Limpias, an ultra-right-wing pseudo union founded in 1995 with a reputation for launching legal challenges against politicians, released a statement explaining the reasoning for issuing the legal complaint and warning that the proceedings were only based on ‘journalistic reports’.
Miguel Bernard, the union’s leader and a former general-secretary of the fascist Fuerza Nueva party, said the group became aware ‘through several digital newspapers of a series of informations that alleged irregularities, which could allegedly be criminal, in the behaviour of the wife of the President of the Government’.
He added: “After observing that the Public Prosecutor’s Office did not act, despite the fact that the aforementioned news had been published for weeks, I proceeded to inform the Court of said information, under the protection of Article 259 of the Criminal Procedure Act, by means of the appropriate complaint, with the aim of opening proceedings”.
“There has not been in the actions of Manos Limpias the slightest false act, because as those who have criticised us have said, I based the complaint that was filed on these journalistic reports, and only on these reports”, continued the statement.
“If they are not true, it will be those who published them who will have to assume the responsibility that they are false, but if they are not untrue, we understand that the legal case will have to continue”.
The statement even weighed in on Sanchez’s reaction, describing his statement as ‘totally unacceptable’.
“Instead of giving the relevant explanations about whether the information about his wife is true or not, he has proceeded in response to insult this union for having exercised a constitutional right, saying that we are a far-right organisation or implying that we are part of a right-wing campaign against him, which is untrue”, the group said.
