14th June 2025
Barcelona News Catalonia News Madrid News Main News

Spain’s Interior Minister and left-wing leader receive death threat letters with bullets

Spain’s Interior Minister, Fernando Grandes-Marlaska, as well as the prominent leader of the left-wing Podemos group, Pablo Iglesias, have received death threat letters containing bullets, Iglesias has said. He also said that the head of Spain’s Guardia Civil police force had received a similar letter.

Iglesias posted a picture of the letter and envelope he had received, together with the four bullets, on Twitter on Friday. The letter had been addressed to him at the Interior Ministry’s headquarters in Madrid.

‘You have let our parents and grandparents die,’ the anonymous letter said. ‘Your wife, your parents and you are sentenced to capital punishment. Your time is running out.’

Iglesias said that the interior ministry had told him it considered the threats serious and that the police were investigating. ‘I hope some arrests will happen,’ he told the state broadcaster TVE. 

According to Iglesias, Interior Minister Grande-Marlaska and his appointee, Guardia Civil Director General María Gámez, received similar letters. Grandes-Marlaska has not yet made any official comment. However, the Europa Press news agency has reported that the letter received by the interior minister stated: ‘You have 10 days to step down. The time to laugh at us has ended. National Police. Civil Guard.’ The minister oversees both police bodies in Spain.

Most political parties in Spain put aside their differences on Friday to condemn the death threat letters. However, the issue has since provoked a bitter confrontation between Iglesias and Rocío Monasterio, the far-right Vox party candidate in an upcoming regional election in Madrid, who cast doubts about the death threats during a radio debate (see clip below). Iglesias quit his role as the second deputy prime minister of Spain in March in order to specifically run in the Madrid elections against the right-wing and far-right groups, scheduled to take place on 4 May.

Image of the letter received and tweeted by Pablo Iglesias, containing a death threat and four bullets.
Image of the letter received and tweeted by Pablo Iglesias, containing a death threat and four bullets. (Twitter / @PabloIglesias)

On Friday morning the Vox party’s Madrid leader, Monasterio, said she was against ‘all kinds of violence’, but then refused during the pre-election debate on Cadena SER radio to retract earlier remarks she’d made that questioned her opponent’s account of the letters received.

As a result, Iglesias and two other left-wing candidates, refused to continue speaking with the far-right politician, and the debate ended abruptly.

Iglesias has been a key figure in Spain ever since bursting onto the political scene in a 2014 European election as Podemos’ candidate. The party presented themselves as the political heirs of the anti-austerity protests that swept Spain in the wake of the financial crisis.

Iglesias became Spain’s second deputy prime minister and Social Rights Minister, after reaching an agreement to form a coalition government led by the socialist PSOE leader and current prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.

Iglesias left the role in March this year, however, in order to run in the 4 May regional election in Madrid. ‘I’ll put all my energy into building a strong and broad left-wing candidacy to prevent the far-right from taking control of our institutions,’ he said at the time, proclaiming that ‘a militant must be wherever he’s most useful’.

The current president of the capital’s regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the right-wing People’s Party (PP), looks set to win the 4 May election, according to the latest polls. But her ability to form a government is likely to hinge on opening the door to a Madrid coalition with the far-right Vox.

You can see the moment that Pablo Iglesias leaves the radio debate in this clip via @ElHuffPost on Twitter:

Sign up for the FREE Weekly Newsletter from Spain in English.

Please support Spain in English with a donation.

Click here to get your business activity or services listed on our DIRECTORY.

Click here for further details on how to ADVERTISE with us.

Recent Posts

Spanish PM apologises, after senior politician resigns due to alleged link to corruption probe

News Desk

Spain, UK and EU agree ‘historic’ post-Brexit Gibraltar deal – full details

News Desk

Court to probe if Air Europa bail out by Spanish PM was conflict of interest

News Desk

Bank of Spain downgrades country’s GDP growth due to US tariffs uncertainty

News Desk

Netflix to invest more than a billion euros in Spain over next four years

News Desk

Spain’s Aena gets green light for €3.2bn expansion of Barcelona-El Prat airport

News Desk

1 comment

Michael Nicholas 26th April 2021 at 2:37 pm

It is extremely difficult to believe that such dangerous packages were able to get through the very stringent controls long put in place by the Post Office to eliminate/stop prevent such packages being sent. What next? undetected hand grenades? blood spattered knives? A cynic would point out that we are in an election campaign here in Madrid.

Reply

Leave a Comment