Grande-Marlaska is a well-known judge since the early 2000s for his time at the Audiencia Nacional, where he tried several members of the Basque terrorist group ETA and he led the trial that followed the Yak-42 accident, among other relevant cases.

[1] He entered the judicial career in 1987 and served in the Court of First Instance and Inquiry in Santoña, Cantabria, from where he was the investigating magistrate in the case against Rafael Escobedo for the Assassination of the Marquesses of Urquijo.

However, four months after arriving at the courthouse, on 1 June 2007, he shelved the case and attributed the responsibility to the Ukrainian crew, clearing the Ministry of Defense of the accident for hiring an unsafe plane.

[6] However, on 22 January 2008, the Fourth Section of the Criminal Division unanimously revoked the decision to shelve the case, alleging that the judge had not exercised any diligence and had failed to defend the victims constitutional right to due process.

Once the case was reopened, he called as witnesses the military leadership of the time, as well as former ministers Federico Trillo and José Bono, but exonerated high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defense of guilt despite their having been reported on the poor state of the aircraft.

[9] In January 2019, the Council of Ministers approved the "Plan for the Reinforcement and Modernization of the Terrestrial Border Protection System in Ceuta and Melilla" with a value of 32 million euros, which also included extending the height of the fences and introducing new technological elements.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez appointed Grande-Marlaska as one of the four "delegated competent authorities" and gave him the command over all state, regional and local law enforcement agencies as well as the power to close all needed roads and borders.

[17] On the issue of unaccompanied minors who had made their way into Ceuta illegally, the minister supported in August 2019 the attempt to send them back "for their own benefit", considering that they were not vulnerable and the expulsion did not pose a threat to them.

[18] The European Court of Human Rights had issued by 2016 a total of eight verdicts condemning Spain for failing to investigate alleged torture and police brutality on detainees,[19] five of which happened under the custody of Grande-Marlaska.

[20][21] According to lawyer Amaia Izko, who represented four of the victims "[...] we proved the judge did nothing to investigate or impede the torture and police brutality [occurring] while the detainees were held incommunicado.