Spain’s governing Socialist Party has instructed prosecutors to investigate Santiago Abascal, leader of the populist Vox party. Abascal had said a time might come when Spaniards would want to see Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez “strung up by his feet.”
The Socialists say Abascal’s comments were “an incitement to hatred and even violence” and “a serious breach of coexistence and the constitutional order.” They accused Abascal of alluding to the fate of Benito Mussolini. The Fascist leader was murdered by Italian communists and hung upside down in a public square in 1945.
Sanchez is accused by Vox and establishment conservatives of retaining power via a “coup d’état”. He placed second in the Spanish elections this year, but cut deals with smaller leftist parties and Catalan separatists. This meant offering pardons to Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s former regional president, and other separatist leaders. They were previously wanted for staging an insurrection in 2017, and lived in exile.
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