MADRID — Most political parties in Spain put aside their differences Friday to contemn a series of death threats mailed to the country’s interior minister, the director of the Civil Guard police force and the leader of a far-left political party.
The threats were delivered in envelopes filled with bullets and accompanied by anonymous letters either demanding for the three officials to step down from their positions or plainly menacing the recipients and their relatives.
Pablo Iglesias, the head of the United We Can Party, posted a photo on Twitter showing the four bullets he said arrived inside the envelope and the letter addressed to him at the Interior Ministry’s headquarters in Madrid.
Iglesias recently stepped down as one of Spain’s four deputy prime ministers and is running as his party’s main candidate in an upcoming Madrid regional election.
“You have let die our parents and grandparents,” the letter posted by Iglesias read, adding: “Your wife, your parents and you are sentenced to capital punishment. Your time is running out.”
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and his appointee, Civil Guard Director General María Gámez, received similar letters.
“You have ten days to step down. The time to laugh at us has ended. National Police. Civil Guard,” read the letter addressed to Grande-Marlaska, according to the private news agency Europa Press. The interior minister oversees both police bodies.
Rocío Monasterio, the far-right Vox party’s candidate in the Madrid election, was criticized Friday for casting doubts on the veracity of Iglesias and Grande-Marlaska’s accounts of the death threats.
