Ex-ally of Spanish PM arrested in graft probe

Spain's Supreme Court has ordered a former close ally of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez into custody in a corruption investigation that has threatened to topple the leftist government.

The probe into Jose Luis Abalos, a former transport minister and Socialist party heavyweight who helped propel Sanchez to power in 2018, is one of several corruption scandals rattling his fragile minority coalition.

Abalos, his ex-adviser Koldo Garcia and another former senior Socialist figure, Santos Cerdan, are suspected of pocketing kickbacks for the awarding of public contracts for sanitary equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Abalos and Garcia will be remanded in custody without bail on suspicion of bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement and for an "extreme" flight risk, the Supreme Court said in a statement.

"Numerous rational indications of criminality exist against both," and the measures ordered against them came "combined with a foreseeably imminent trial", the court added.

Prosecutors have demanded 24 years in jail for Abalos, who was expelled from the Socialist party and sits as an independent MP in parliament, and 19 and a half years for Garcia.

Cerdan, who was released last week, spent almost five months in jail after relinquishing his powerful post as Socialist organisation secretary and as an MP. 

The scandal has rocked a government that came to power promising to clean up Spanish politics after the main conservative Popular Party was convicted in its own graft affair. 

The crisis also briefly threatened to rip apart the Socialist-led coalition with the far-left Sumar party and heightened speculation of early elections. 

Sanchez has denied any irregular funding of the Socialist party and refused to call snap elections, saying last month that "all spending has been accounted for, credited and audited".

Separate corruption probes have ensnared the prime minister's wife Begona Gomez as well as his younger brother David Sanchez. 

The legal troubles compound woes for the minority government, which struggles to pass legislation.