The Prosecutor’s Office considers it a “logical” position for an investigator, but not one who “claims to collaborate” with Justice
MADRID, 21 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has criticized that BBVA tries to “avoid” the investigation that the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón develops on the alleged orders that the entity would have made to the now retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo while the bank defends its ” collaboration with the Justice”.
In a letter sent to the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, to which Europa Press has had access, prosecutors Miguel Serrano and Alejandro Cabaleiro assure that with the appeal that the entity presented to try to prevent the investigations from being extended to new facts, the bank tries to torpedo “the investigation of alleged criminal acts committed within BBVA, by its staff and for its benefit”.
The entity, specifically, urged the instructor to correct his order from July 22, by which he agreed to a new extension of the so-called ‘BBVA piece’ of the ‘Villarejo case’, incorporating into it some “new facts” found in ‘ Kitchen’ and accusing the bank and several of its employees of the same.
BBVA explained in its brief that these “new facts” are related to the hiring of ANBYCOL, the company of former police officer Antonio Bonilla, identified by the judicial investigation as one of Villarejo’s collaborators, which is why he sat on the bench of the defendants in the first trial to the commissioner for their private business.
The aforementioned events appear in two police official documents, one dated April 15, 2021 and another extension dated April 25, 2022, which would reflect – according to the bank – the content of a Bonilla mobile phone.
In this line, the Public Prosecutor’s Office highlights “the contradiction involved in discovering apparently criminal acts and, far from wanting to investigate them to find the material truth of them, what is done” by BBVA “is to try to take advantage of supposed infractions of the ordinary legality to avoid their investigation”.
“Obviously such a guideline is logical and totally respectable from the perspective of an investigator, but not of an investigator who claims to collaborate with the investigation,” lament the prosecutors, who consider that the aforementioned resource seeks only “to take advantage of formal rigorism” to hinder the work of the judge.
In the entity’s opinion, his right to defense was violated “because he was not informed ‘without undue delay’ of the facts that were being investigated.” “What reason was there for not notifying us of that investigation 15 months ago? Absolutely none,” they stated in their appeal, concluding that “all this” was carried out “behind BBVA’s back.”
Regarding what the bank maintains, Anticorruption charges BBVA for not pointing out “what proceedings were instructed behind their backs.” “And this is so, simply, because there were no such proceedings. The truth is that nothing was instructed behind the back of any party for the simple reason that nothing was instructed,” he maintains.
In relation to the affirmation made by the bank, which defended that ANBYCOL was a company outside CENYT –the Villarejo business group– the prosecutors are clear: “It cannot be affirmed now that Antonio Bonilla has nothing to do with CENYT and that the company ANBYCOL has nothing to do with CENYT because, simply, it is not true”.
In this regard, the representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office point out that as “proof of this, it is only possible to reveal, among others, the curriculum vitae of Antonio Bonilla in which he appears, since 2013, as director of operations of the CENYT group.”
Thus, Anticorruption launches a question: “If ANBYCOL has nothing to do with CENYT, as is now being surprisingly stated, why in the line of defense of the BBVA lawyers hired to analyze CENYT’s contracts was a uniform ordered over ANBYCOL? “.
In this separate piece of ‘Tándem’, the judge puts the magnifying glass on BBVA’s contracts with CENYT for different projects at least between 2004 and 2017, some works for which the entity would have paid the retired commissioner more than 10 million euros.
