The Madrid public prosecutor Ignacio Stampa, who testified on Wednesday in the case in which the former PSOE militant Leire Díez is investigated for alleged crimes of corruption and influence peddling, gave the judge the messages exchanged with her and with the businessman Luis del Rivero, who was the one who organized the meeting in which he claims to have offered to help him in his proceedings against the Administration in exchange for sensitive information. «1 is the one who decides», we read in a WhatsApp message sent from Del Rivero’s cell phone to Stampa. The prosecutor told the head of Madrid’s investigative court number 9 that he believed “1” referred to Pedro Sánchez, as confirmed by legal sources.
These cell phone screenshots, to which EL PAÍS had access, were presented by the public prosecutor together with a notarial report in which he explains a recording of more than three hours made during that same meeting, on May 7 in Del Rivero’s office, and in which, presumably, Leire Díez and the entrepreneur who accompanied him, Javier Pérez-Dolset, would have presented themselves as emissaries of the PSOE and would have referred to the president of the government until 12 times.
The chain of messages allows us to see how that meeting was constructed in which Stampa was convinced that former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán – currently in provisional prison for a corruption investigation – and Pérez Dolset, a businessman also under investigation for fraud at the National Court, would participate. “Could you do it on Wednesday the 7th at 12?” Del Rivero asked him. “Dolset, the envoy and me”, he specified. When Stampa wanted to know who the “envoy” was, the entrepreneur said: “Santos C.” The prosecutor responded in surprise: “I have a hallucination. Very strange.” “Listen, see and be silent,” Del Rivero responded.
According to his statement before Judge Zamarriego this week, it was not Cerdán present at that meeting but Leire Díez, who said she would pass on everything that was discussed to the then secretary of the Socialist Organization. The official was not surprised by the intermediation of the entrepreneur Del Rivero because he had already managed other meetings with politicians following the book written by La Stampa. According to their version, both Díez and Dolset wanted to obtain information on the chief anti-corruption prosecutor Alejandro Luzón, on Kitchen storage bag (hitting a PP parapolice plan aimed at erasing information on the party’s “B box”) or other members of the judiciary. In exchange they offered to “reinstate” him in the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office from where he left, denouncing the Public Prosecutor’s maneuvers to relieve him.
Two days after the meeting, Stampa receives a new WhatsApp message from the intermediary. “Breakfast. Very satisfied. Total support,” Del Rivero tells him. “They will file the first Vox complaint,” he says. Legal sources explain that this is what they promised the prosecutor to rehabilitate him, since the group led by Santiago Abascal filed a complaint against him in 2020 for having disclosed secrets, which ended up removing him from the Anti-Corruption without the complaint coming to anything. Stampa filed a lawsuit against the Administration to acknowledge that he had been unfairly investigated.
The next day, May 11, Stampa apologized for not having responded the day before and asked for further clarification on what he was referring to. «Now there is the rehabilitation sentence», underlines Del Rivero. “And you won’t withdraw the appeal and pay my costs?” asks Stampa. At that time, the State Prosecutor’s Office had appealed to the Supreme Court against the ruling which ruled in favor of the Prosecutor and obligated the State to compensate him for having unreasonably delayed an internal trial of the Prosecutor’s Office against him. “This is their proposal at 1,” reflects Del Rivero.
Several legal sources confirm that Stampa, in his deposition before the judge this Wednesday, assured that when they referred to “1” they were referring to the president of the government, to whom Dolset and Leire Díez claimed to report. “Then it is assumed that they will want to talk to me again,” the prosecutor said. “Another thing is that the 1 is the one who decides. “It should be like this,” he replied. On the proposal to reinstate him in the Anti-Corruption, Stampa joked: “They think that I want to go back there, in that Prosecutor’s Office without Serrano (the other prosecutor who had the power) The Villarejo case) and with Luzón (the chief prosecutor)”.
On May 12, the businessman apparently considered the message delivered. “Broadcast. At one,” he says after half past four in the afternoon. “As if I don’t have more important things today!” Stampa responds. “He will have time for everything,” says Del Rivero. At this point he reminds him again that they are very interested in “piece 7”, always referring to the Kitchen storage bag which targets corruption in the PP and whose trial will be held in the first quarter of 2027.
Leire’s messages to the press
Only on May 21 did the prosecutor receive the first message on his cell phone from the former PSOE activist he had met days earlier. “Hi Ignacio. I’m Leire,” read the captures presented in court. She asks him to speak on the phone and it is recorded that they had a 13 minute conversation the next day.
Stampa recorded both the first meeting and this call and brought both matters before a notary. These audios have also been provided to the investigation, although they have not yet been transferred to the parties involved in the proceedings. Its exact contents are not yet known, beyond what the prosecutor testified as a witness.
Del Rivero tries to renew the position at the end of May. Stampa agrees to meet Dolset again on the 29th of the same month, but the news that defines Leire Díez as a “PSOE plumber” begins to appear a few days earlier and the media focuses on the meetings that the former socialist militant had for weeks with the defendants offering deals with the Prosecutor’s Office in exchange for information. “Good morning, cancel that coffee on Thursday, please”, writes Stampa to the entrepreneur. “That’s how I do it,” he replied.
