{"id":1408,"date":"2026-05-19T19:27:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2026-05-19T23:55:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:55:37","slug":"spain-former-socialist-pm-zapatero-faces-corruption-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/spain-former-socialist-pm-zapatero-faces-corruption-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain: Former Socialist PM Zapatero Faces Corruption Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero, former socialist prime minister of Spain, is facing criminal charges for serious corruption offenses, including<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>money laundering,<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>establishing a criminal organization,<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>forgery of documents,<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>influence peddling.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The case is linked to his involvement in <strong>the granting of a state aid package amounting to 62 million dollars to the small Spanish airline Plus Ultra in 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/strong> To receive the funds, the company was <strong>classified as \u201cstrategic,\u201d although according to the authorities it did not meet the criteria.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Zapatero faces a prison sentence of up to 16 years<\/h2>\n<p>The socialist politician, who governed Spain from 2004 to 2011, has faced strong criticism from conservative circles in Latin America. <strong>They consider him a key supporter of Chavismo, as he repeatedly participated in mediation initiatives with Hugo Ch\u00e1vez and later with Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>His critics argue that these actions covered up human rights violations, electoral irregularities, and the economic collapse of Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>After leaving office, his involvement in dialogues related to Venezuela and his alleged business relationships further intensified the backlash against him.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of foreign policy, Zapatero\u2019s tenure marked a <strong>shift to the left.<\/strong> A few days after his election, he withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq following the 2004 Madrid bombings. At the same time, <strong>his government distanced itself from the United States while promoting environmental initiatives and social reforms domestically.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In Spain, conservatives often refer to him as the \u201cgodfather\u201d of what they call the PSOE\u2019s \u201csocialist mafia.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>They claim that subsequent corruption scandals involving close associates of current Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez would not have been possible without the precedent set during Zapatero\u2019s era.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecution against the former prime minister is still in its early stages, with judicial authorities examining his specific actions in the Plus Ultra case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Spanish PM Zapatero faces corruption charges including money laundering linked to a disputed $62M bailout of Plus Ultra during Covid-19, amid broader political controversies and allegations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":1409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[1282,1280,921,1281,630],"nfg_topic":[134],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-hugo-chavez","tag-jose-luis-rodriguez-zapatero","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-plus-ultra","tag-spain","nfg_topic-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1410,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/1410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}