The Más Madrid deputy Pablo Padilla reaffirmed this Friday his statements about Israel and the entity ACOM during a judicial conciliation act. The Israeli organization reported him for defamation and hate crime.
The regional deputy of Más Madrid Pablo Padilla attended the Madrid courts this Friday to defend his controversial statements about Israel. The organization Acción y Comunicación sobre Oriente Medio (ACOM) reported him in March for alleged defamation, slander, and hate crime. The conciliation act was unsuccessful, so the case will continue its judicial course.
The words that triggered the complaint
The events date back to September 26, 2025, during an intervention by Padilla in the Assembly of Madrid. The deputy then asked:
“What does Isabel Díaz Ayuso owe to Israel?”In his speech, he recalled that the Madrid president engaged in “war tourism” in 2018 and “traveled to the territories illegally occupied by Israel.” He also referred to David Hatchwell, whom he described as “founder of ACOM, a war entity that persecutes Palestinian solidarity.”
Padilla added that Hatchwell is a senior executive at Exen, a defense company with contracts with PP communities, and that he was a donor to Netanyahu's campaign and a producer for Nacho Cano.
“What does Mr. Pache owe to Israel? Because there is only one thing worse than coming here to make jokes and defend genocide,” he exclaimed.
The defence: freedom of expression and parliamentary inviolability
Padilla's defence is based on three pillars. First, that his words fall within the “legitimate exercise of freedom of expression” and are truthful. Second, that he enjoys parliamentary inviolability as a regional deputy. And third, that all his statements have “a real factual basis,” supported by prior public information.
His legal team emphasizes that the hate crime complaint is unfounded:
“Legitimate political criticism directed against an organization (ACOM) and against institutional relations does not equate to incitement to hatred on ethnic or religious grounds. The statements refer to an entity and individuals for their public activity, not against the Jewish community as a whole.”
The deputy has fully reaffirmed all his statements. He believes that ACOM's legal strategy seeks to “silence activists, journalists, and politicians.”
“The Zionist entity ACOM is mistaken if it thinks it will silence the denunciation of the genocide that Israel perpetrates in Gaza. We will continue to highlight both Israel's crimes and the tentacles of Zionism in Spain,” he declared.
ACOM's accusation: antisemitism and falsehoods
For ACOM, Padilla's expressions are “unequivocally antisemitic” and foster hostility against the Spanish Jewish community. The entity demands that the deputy publicly acknowledge the falsity of the facts attributed to ACOM, commit to not repeating defamatory statements, and compensate for moral damages.
In the complaint, ACOM includes a section on Padilla's “violent conduct and background,” mentioning a sanction from the Assembly in 2024 and an expulsion from the Plenary in 2025, both related to his statements about Israel.
What happens now? The case continues its course
As there was no agreement in the conciliation, the judicial procedure continues. The judge must decide whether to admit the complaint for processing or archive it. Meanwhile, Padilla remains a deputy and retains his seat in the Assembly of Madrid. For the residents of the region, this case sets a precedent regarding the limits of political criticism in parliamentary settings and the protection of freedom of expression against hate accusations.
The next hearing could be scheduled in the coming months. The deputy, for his part, asserts that he will not be silenced: “In our country, the majority sentiment is one of repulsion towards Israel's occupation policy. They will not change that by criminalizing those of us who give voice to those ideas.”
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