Spain's attorney general defends himself in court

The trial of Spain's attorney general for allegedly revealing secrets wound up this week, and the court will now consider its verdict. The highlight of this week's proceedings was Wednesday's appearance of the accused, Álvaro García Ortiz. The attorney general was adamant in his defence and claimed his right not to answer questions from the private side of the prosecution.

In reply to the accusation that he leaked information about a tax investigation of the partner of the regional PP president of Madrid - a political rival and an adversary of García Ortiz's PSOE party - he said: "I didn't leak anything; we reacted to an attempt at manipulation and to a false rumour as the integrity of the prosecutor's office was being seriously questioned."

On why he had deleted beyond retrieval the messages from his phone from that time, he said:

"I systematically delete everything every month. There are a lot of WhatsApps and the information is very sensitive."