PP demands Government explain why they released Alejandro Hamlyn without extraditing him from Dubai
The People's Party will seek explanations in the Senate following the release of Hafesa's owner, detained by Interpol in Dubai and convicted of tax fraud.
The Senate must hear the Government's account of Hamlyn's release in Dubai
The People's Party has announced that it will formally request explanations in the Senate from Pedro Sánchez's Government for failing to process the extradition of Alejandro Hamlyn, owner of the oil company Hafesa, who was released in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) despite having an extradition order issued by the National Court. According to ABC, the inaction of the Justice and Foreign Affairs ministries is said to have been decisive in allowing Hamlyn to regain his freedom following his detention by Interpol in late August.
Javier De Andrés, president of the People's Party in the Basque Country, announced the parliamentary initiative. The People's Party leader recalled that Hamlyn "must also give explanations for his business dealings in Vizcaya, where the Basque Regional Treasury forgave him the significant sum of 225 million euros in VAT and hydrocarbon taxes". De Andrés linked that condonation to the pressures which, according to him, were allegedly exerted on the businessman to obtain information about ongoing investigations affecting the entourage of the head of Government.
The extradition order and the trial of 'Operation Drake'
The National Court issued an extradition order against Hamlyn after he failed to appear for trial in the so-called 'Operation Drake', a case in which his company and part of its management team were convicted of a 154 million euro fraud in the hydrocarbon sector. Hamlyn was also summoned in June 2025 as an investigated party before the Court of First Instance No. 1 of the National Court for allegedly keeping a police officer on his payroll who was leaking him information, and he was absent from that appearance as well. He still faces individual trial on fraud charges.
The conversation with Leire Díez
Hamlyn's name hit the press on 26 May 2025, the date the 'Operation Drake' trial was scheduled to begin, postponed precisely because of his failure to appear. That same day, El Confidencial reported on the content of a virtual meeting in which Hamlyn participated alongside Leire Díez—known as the Socialist Party's 'plumber'—businessman Javier Pérez Dolset and lawyer Jacobo Teijelo. In that conversation, the speakers offered Hamlyn a deal with "the State Attorney's office and the Public Prosecutor's office" in exchange for damaging information about senior Civil Guard commanders.
"I need Balas", Díez said, referring to Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, responsible for most of the judicial investigations affecting Pedro Sánchez, his wife Begoña Gómez, his brother and the so-called 'Koldo case'. Leire Díez was detained in December of the previous year in connection with another case relating to alleged illegal commission payments.
ABC also reported that, in a virtual meeting held in February of the previous year with Díez, the Socialist Party's 'plumber' asked Hamlyn for specific information to "kill" Lieutenant Colonel Balas civilly.
The "note" and the debt to the Regional Treasury
In the same conversation disclosed by El Confidencial, Hamlyn asked Díez for a "note" in exchange for providing the sensitive data being requested of him, although the businessman subsequently claimed that his words were bait with which he was "joking" with his interlocutors. The grandson of shipowner José María López-Tapia also demanded of the Socialist representative that she sort out "the Foral matter", referring to the debt that Hafesa maintained with the Basque Regional Treasury of Vizcaya.
In a subsequent interview in El Correo, Hamlyn stated: "Thanks to the Basque Country, we continue to contribute because they've got me into a mess... My conscience is clear. I have paid the Basque Regional Treasury more than 1,200 million over the last five years and they have given me a deferment on a debt of 225 million. They helped me and I will never stop paying them".
The scandal forced Itxaso Berrojalbiz, responsible for Treasury and Finance at the Basque Regional Authority of Vizcaya—an institution that manages taxation in the Basque Country under the Economic Agreement—to make a public statement to deny that there had been "preferential treatment" in the deferrals granted to Hafesa.
The PP speaks of "hidden matter" linking Hamlyn to PNV and PSOE
De Andrés characterised the Government's failure to execute the extradition as an "unprecedented decision", and maintained that this attitude fuels "the suspicion that this withdrawal would be due to a link between Hamlyn and the PNV—from whom he allegedly possesses compromising information about its financing—and the PSOE". The leader of the Basque Country's People's Party added that "this inaction feeds into the presentiment that there exists a hidden and murky matter linking those who have favoured him in his fiscal dealings and Spain's Government".
Sánchez's Government has so far offered no public explanation for the reasons why the competent ministries failed to process the extradition of the Vizcayan businessman in time, who remains beyond the reach of Spanish justice.
Source: ABC