Spain’s Supreme Court should investigate the leader of the far-right SALF party for an alleged crime of public disorder during a violent demonstration outside the Socialist Party headquarters in the Spanish capital last year, a Madrid judge said on Tuesday.
The magistrate asked for Alvise Pérez, the leader of Se Acabó la Fiesta (SALF), to be investigated for his alleged participation in violent protests held in October and November 2023 before the PSOE’s (S&D) headquarters in Madrid against a controversial amnesty law related to the October 2017 secessionist attempt in Catalonia.
The SALF party was the big surprise in the 9 June European elections, when the extreme right formation won three seats in Strasbourg, including that of Pérez, with more than 800,000 votes (4.59%).
However, Pérez is controversial due to his xenophobic stance and verbal attacks on the corruption of traditional political parties.
The SALF leader is under investigation for allegedly receiving an undeclared sum of €100,000 from a cryptocurrency entrepreneur to finance his election campaigns.
The judge explains in his request to the Supreme Court that since the SALF leader currently enjoys parliamentary immunity as an MEP, it should be the highest Spanish judicial body to initiate the procedure, ABC reported.
The judge of the High Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) Hermenegildo Alfredo Barrera refers in particular to a complaint against Pérez he received from police – dated 16 November 2023 – in which the far-right politician was accused of an alleged crime of public disorder for his participation in the protests.
At the time of the events, the SALF leader was not an MEP but was involved in several protests with far-right groups, Spanish media reported.
The judge claims that there could be indications of Pérez’s participation in those protests, during which street furniture around the PSOE headquarters was severely damaged and shops near the socialist headquarters had to shut down for several days.
In his arguments for requesting the opening of the investigation, the judge points out that “there are indications of guilt which have led to the admission of the present complaint on the grounds that the person identified could be the author of the criminal act of public disorder”.
The far-right leader asked last July for SALF’s entry into the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament, currently led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Although the ECR had originally planned to give Pérez a response last September, the group finally informed him of its refusal in the first days of this month, El Confidencial reported.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
