The second highest figure in Spain’s national police force was forced to resign on Tuesday following accusations of rape, a new scandal that further weakens Sánchez’s left-wing government, accused by the opposition of trying to cover up the case.
This case comes as members of the inner circle—both personal and professional—of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have been the subject of judicial investigations for several months.
Furthermore, several members of the Socialist Party, which he leads, faced accusations of sexual harassment at the end of last year.
This new scandal was triggered by a rape accusation made by a female member of the Spanish police against José Ángel González Jiménez, 66, until then deputy chief of Spain’s national police force.
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According to the victim’s account given by her lawyer Jorge Piedrafita, after a lunch in a restaurant in April 2025, the senior police official allegedly ordered her to drive him to his official residence, where he raped her.
The complaint filed by the victim alleges sexual assault, coercion and psychological harm, the lawyer said.
“The facts (…) are of such gravity that, as soon as they became known, (the) resignation (of José Ángel González Jiménez, editor’s note) was demanded,” said Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Wednesday.
“We knew nothing,” Marlaska insisted, adding that “if we had had the slightest knowledge of a situation of such gravity, you can understand that we would have asked him to resign sooner.”
But these arguments did not convince the People’s Party (conservative), the main right-wing opposition party, which called for the immediate departure of the minister, who has been in office since 2018.
“The government’s main argument for justifying that an alleged rapist was at the head of the national police is that they only found out about it yesterday (Tuesday),” quipped Alberto Núñez Feijóo, head of the Spanish PP opposition party, on X.
“Does he really think we accept that the Interior Minister had no idea what the police hierarchy was doing and that it is covering up crimes?”, he further inquired.
Under pressure, Grande-Marlaska assured that he would only leave his position “if the victim herself says she did not feel protected”.
This case is all the more delicate for Prime Minister Sánchez as he has made the fight against violence against women and gender equality the absolute priorities of his policy.
At the end of last year, after the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) was rocked by a series of sexual harassment cases that led to the resignation of several local or regional officials, while the Spanish premier admitted “mistakes”.
Since then, the PSOE has suffered two electoral defeats in regional elections in Extremadura and Aragón, and some of the most recent polls show it losing to the PP if parliamentary elections were held now.
