MADRID, 23 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The judge of the National High Court in charge of the ‘Tandem case’ will take a statement this Wednesday from BBVA’s legal representative for the alleged illegal assignments that the bank would have entrusted to the now retired Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo.
The head of the Central Investigating Court Number 6, Manuel García Castellón, will listen to the bank’s representative starting at 10:00 a.m. as part of the piece in which the magnifying glass is put on BBVA’s contracts with CENYT -business group of the commissioner– signed at least between 2004 and 2017 and for which the entity would have paid Villarejo more than 10 million euros.
It should be remembered that last July the judge already announced that he would summon a series of natural and legal persons to testify, including BBVA, which was already listed as being investigated in the procedure.
In that same resolution, the instructor agreed to expand the investigation for the “new facts” found in the framework of another piece of the macro-cause on Villarejo. The entity asked the judge to back down and alleged that the investigations had been carried out behind his “backs”, something that had made him “helpless”.
On that occasion, the judge ordered the Internal Affairs Unit to make an offer of shares to 67 people who could be “possibly harmed or offended or victims of an act constituting a criminal offence” in order “to be able to determine BBVA’s interest as legal entity, or its employees, in a personal capacity, to commission CENYT to carry out work on said persons”.
BBVA’s statement will close a round of statements in which the magistrate has summoned, among others, former police officer Antonio Bonilla, identified by the judicial investigation as one of Villarejo’s collaborators. This, however, took advantage of his right not to testify.
This same month, the judge also summoned two bank workers –Simón Galera and José Manuel Cantero– and three agents from the National Police Corps. However, two of the policemen did not go to court and the other decided not to testify.
That route was also the one chosen by Oscar Santos Tuche, the BBVA employee who was cited as being investigated. The magistrate was able to question José Lópe, a witness who “was identified as the BBVA employee who prepared the entity’s reports in response to SEBPLAC’s information requirements.”
The Public Prosecutor’s Office announced in the latter’s statement that it would ask Judge García Castellón to call López’s hierarchical superiors to testify. The sources consulted have confirmed that the magistrate considers this diligence pertinent and will agree to summon him in the near future.
Finally, the magistrate plans to take a statement on November 29 from the former president of BBVA Francisco González, who asked in July to go to court despite the fact that he already appeared on November 18, 2019, arguing that the investigations were then secret and it is now when he has been able to have knowledge of everything investigated.
