Spain’s National Police force was thrown into turmoil on Tuesday after its second-highest-ranking officer stepped down amid accusations of rape, in a fresh scandal that could further undermine the coalition government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The opposition has accused the government of attempting to conceal the case.
The affair comes at a sensitive moment for Sánchez, whose close personal and professional circle has been under judicial scrutiny for several months. It also follows a string of sexual harassment allegations involving members of the socialist (PSOE) party late last year. ALSO READ: Facing fallout among women voters over sex scandals, the PSOE tighten harassment protocols.
The latest allegations were brought by a female police officer against José Ángel González Jiménez, 66 (main image, from 2020), who until this week served as deputy director of operations of Spain’s national police.
According to the account provided by the alleged victim’s lawyer, Jorge Piedrafita, the incident occurred after a lunch at a restaurant in April 2025. The senior police official allegedly instructed the woman to drive him to his official residence, where he is accused of raping her.
The complaint filed accuses González Jiménez of sexual assault, coercion and causing psychological harm, Piedrafita said.
The complaint further alleges that the officer was subsequently pressured not to report the events, both directly by González Jiménez and indirectly by other senior police officials.
According to Spanish media, the complaint states that the former police chief began a ‘systematic, obsessive and intensive campaign of telephone harassment and psychological manipulation of the victim aimed at maintaining control over her, minimising the seriousness of his criminal behaviour, blaming the victim for what had happened, preventing her from reporting the incident’ and ‘offering employment compensation in exchange for her silence’.
As a result, she is on psychological leave, her lawyer Piedrafita said, adding that her service weapon had been withdrawn and that she had been declared medically unfit for duty.
The complaint also states that the officer and González Jiménez had previously been in a relationship marked by ‘a manifest institutional power imbalance’. It alleges that after the relationship ended unilaterally, the former police chief engaged in persistent unwanted contact.
González Jiménez stepped down after a Madrid judge admitted the criminal complaint against him and opened a formal investigation, El Pais reported. Judge David Maman has summoned the former police chief to testify on 17 March as a formal subject of the proceedings.
Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Wednesday that, ‘The facts (…) are of such gravity that, as soon as they became known, (the) resignation (of José Ángel González Jiménez) was demanded.’
Marlaska insisted that the ministry had been unaware of the allegations, saying ‘we knew nothing’, 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’.
According to Spain’s national broadcaster RTVE, the Interior Ministry was also actively ‘investigating whether [the former police chief] coerced the victim into trying not to report the case’.
Those explanations failed to satisfy the right-wing People’s Party (PP), Spain’s main opposition force, which called for Grande-Marlaska’s immediate resignation after more than six years in office.
‘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),’ said PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo on X.
‘If the government has had a presumed rapist at the helm of the National Police for at least a month, and now he’s leaving, there’s only one possible conclusion: they’re not getting rid of him for what he did, but because it’s become public. Until it came to light, they knew about it, covered it up, and protected him,’ Feijóo wrote (see below).
Facing mounting pressure, Grande-Marlaska said he would only step down ‘if the victim herself says she did not feel protected’.
The case is particularly damaging for Prime Minister Sánchez, who has made combating violence against women and promoting gender equality central pillars of his political agenda.
Late last year, the PSOE was shaken by multiple sexual harassment cases that forced several local and regional officials to resign, with Sánchez himself acknowledging ‘mistakes’. ALSO READ: Sánchez battles to control PSOE crisis, as claims of sexual harassment force a new resignation.
Since then, the PSOE has suffered electoral defeats in the regions of Extremadura and Aragón, while recent opinion polls suggest the party would lose to the PP if a general election were held now. ALSO READ: Spain’s main opposition party claims the ruling socialists are in ‘irreversible decline’.
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En el Congreso, Marlaska ha asegurado que desconocía la denuncia por agresión sexual contra el Director Adjunto Operativo de la Policía Nacional, José Ángel González. También ha dicho que llevará a los tribunales a quienes le calumnien.
▶️https://t.co/ZgJQU9hav8 pic.twitter.com/8YmKL08mCa
— Telediarios de TVE (@telediario_tve) February 18, 2026
Si el Gobierno ha tenido a un presunto violador al frente de la Policía Nacional, como mínimo, desde hace un mes, y ahora se va, solo hay una conclusión posible: no prescinden de él por lo que hizo, sino porque se ha hecho público. Hasta que ha trascendido, lo sabían, lo taparon…
— Alberto Núñez Feijóo (@NunezFeijoo) February 18, 2026
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