The Ministry of Interior has confirmed that Leire Díez, considered Ferraz’s ‘fixer’, met twice with the Director General of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, as stated in the report by the Central Operative Unit (UCO) which forms part of the summary being instructed by magistrate Pedraz.
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The General Directorate of the Armed Institute thus contradicts Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska himself, who several days ago categorically denied that the two had met. “The director of the Civil Guard has not had any meeting with Leire of any kind,” he stated. Grande-Marlaska has always defended the actions of Mercedes González, strongly questioned in all branches of the Corps since Pedro Sánchez promoted her to the Corps in September 2024.
The summary of the well-known Leire case includes meetings and contacts between Díez and Mercedes González since Pedro Sánchez appointed the latter to the position in September 2024. In fact, the UCO places her at the headquarters of the Armed Institute’s directorate, on Guzmán el Bueno street (Madrid), and does so through a geolocation of her mobile phone when they were already investigating her movements.
The first meeting took place, as the Ministry of Interior acknowledges in a press release distributed late this Wednesday, after González’s appointment as Director General of the Civil Guard. “Leire Díez contacted her to hold a first meeting in which she conveyed her new employment situation (…)
“In this meeting, which took place in a cafeteria near the General Directorate of the Civil Guard, they met personally for the first time, and nothing related to the work performed by this Corps was discussed. After a quick meeting, lasting barely 15 minutes, the director understood that it was a mere initial contact to ask for a job or establish a future working relationship, given her recent appointment,” the statement specifies.
Several months later, Leire Díez contacted Mercedes González, as the Civil Guard itself admits, proposing to meet while she was in Madrid. “But this appointment was canceled due to a family illness, which forced her to remain in Cantabria,” it adds.
Later, they resumed the meeting which, according to the Ministry of Interior, was limited to a conversation about her family situation. “At a certain point, Ms. Díez told the director that she had a request related to her work, asking if there would be any possibility for Commander Rubén Villalba to return to his position. A request that the director flatly rejected, reminding her that he was without assignment due to his alleged involvement in a judicial case, and the meeting was immediately concluded.”
This is stated by the team in the report that forms part of the summary directed by judge Santiago Pedraz. There is a key date: December 10, 2024, when the UCO dates the first elements that “evidence” that Leire Díez was providing the Director General of the Armed Institute with “information derived from the apparently criminal activity she was carrying out at that time and which, as has been explained, would have had the Civil Guard itself as one of its targets and, more specifically, “the Central Operative Unit and some of its members.”
