Urges to judge and condemn the PP as a participant for profit for the use of reserved funds
The PSOE has asked to sentence the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz to almost 50 years in prison for ‘Kitchen’, an alleged vigilante operation to spy on the former treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas and steal any sensitive information he had about the PP, and the party as a participant for profit, while it has been interesting that the former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the former ministers of the PP María Dolores de Cospedal and Juan Ignacio Zoido testify in the future trial.
The socialist accusation presented this Wednesday its brief with provisional conclusions urging the National Court to open an oral trial against the 11 prosecuted by the ‘Kitchen’: Fernández Díaz; his former Secretary of State Francisco Martínez; former policemen José Manuel Villarejo, Eugenio Pino, Marcelino Martín Blas, Enrique García Castaño, Andrés Gómez Gordo, José Luis Olivera, José Ángel Fuentes Gago, Bonifacio Díez Sevillano; and the former driver of the Bárcenas, Sergio Ríos.
He also asks to send the PP to trial as a profit-making participant and that he be sentenced as such to respond “up to an amount equivalent to the total reserved funds used in ‘Operation’ Kitchen.”
In its letter, to which Europa Press has had access, the PSOE asks to sentence Fernández Díaz, whom the judicial investigation outlined as the alleged ‘brain’ of ‘Operation Kitchen’, to 47 years and 10 months in prison; while his former ‘number two’ and Villarejo advocate punishing them with 38 years and 3 months in prison each.
It also proposes a sentence of 36 years and 1 month in prison for Ríos and that 35 years and 9 months in prison be imposed on the former head of the Central Operational Support Unit (UCAO), García Castaño.
The formation led by Pedro Sánchez proposes 34 years and 9 months in prison for Pino, Olivera, Martín Blas and Gómez Gordo. And, for Fuentes Gago and Díez Sevillano, 32 years and 4 months in prison.
The Socialists point to the commission by those accused of crimes of criminal organization, cover-up, obstruction of justice “due to coercion and threats to Bárcenas during his stay in prison” and continued crimes of bribery.
It also refers to continued crimes of embezzlement “for payments charged to reserved funds and the use of public means for private purposes”, crimes of trespassing, disclosure of secrets or continued prevarication. Additionally, it sees crimes of fraud against public administrations and false certification.
On the other hand, the evidence to be practiced during the trial is already advancing. In addition to the defendants and the Bárcenas, as injured, he requests that Rajoy, Cospedal, Zoido, the former director general of the National Police Ignacio Cosidó be called as witnesses; the current Madrid councilor Enrique López; the former Secretaries of State José Antonio Nieto and Ignacio Ulloa; former police officers and civil guard Diego Pérez de los Cobos.
The PSOE also requests that the last known audios about the conversations that Villarejo would have had with Cospedal be reproduced as documentary evidence. This is a conversation from January 2013 where the former minister asked the commissioner to “stop” the matter of “the little book” of Bárcenas, expressing her concern that the papers of the former treasurer were in the hands of journalists.
IT POINTS TO THE NATIONAL DIRECTION OF THE PP
For the PSOE, it is not possible to understand ‘Kitchen’ without its “connection” with ‘Gürtel’, “just as it is not possible to understand, much less explain in isolation, the reasons for the frenetic vigilante activity that is launched in ‘Kitchen’ without putting it in relation to a much broader operation launched by the national leadership of the PP, first in the opposition and then from the Government to defend itself from the action of justice”.
It places the starting point in a meeting held on July 21, 2009, which Cospedal, her husband Ignacio López del Hierro and Villarejo would have attended, days after Bárcenas was called to testify as a defendant. The PSOE has no doubt that in that “long conversation” the then commissioner is entrusted with “a series of specific jobs” to hinder ‘Gürtel and investigate PP officials “with a clear enmity with the general secretary.”
According to the PSOE, since Bárcenas was placed in provisional prison in July 2013, an “extremely serious situation for the top leaders of the PP” is when “the political and police leadership of the Ministry of the Interior” deploys ‘Kitchen’ “to spy on and steal documents from the treasurer that, if made public, could lead to political and criminal consequences for numerous PP leaders.”
As proof of the alleged existence of this “meticulous plan concocted by those currently on trial aimed at protecting the top officials of the PP who appear in the documentation stolen from Bárcenas”, the PSOE mentions Villarejo’s personal agendas, his intelligence notes, recordings and testimonies that appear in the case and “the destruction of the videos of the national headquarters of the PP in Génova street”.
THE ‘OPERATION KITCHEN’
According to the judicial account, the socialist accusation alludes to Fernández Díaz as the person who would have started the ‘Kitchen’ machinery, entrusting his follow-up to Martínez. The then Secretary of State for Security would have been in charge of activating the indicated police commanders, each of whom would have carried out a different function.
For example, he refers to the alleged approaches of García Castaño and Villarejo to capture Ríos as a spy for the Kitchen and the alleged need to resort to the “political leg” so that Gómez Gordo, then Cospedal’s security chief who knew the driver , intervened and finally convinced him after his initial refusal to collaborate.
With that, the ‘Kitchen’ would have achieved “a constant presence in the Bárcenas environment”, of which “Villarejo is promptly informed, who transmits it to his superiors”. “As a result of all the information collected in various ways, it is concluded that Bárcenas keeps documentation or relevant information.”
To achieve it, continues the socialist accusation, “several fronts” were opened, from the cloning of mobile phones of the Bárcenas to the theft of documentation kept in a place where the wife of the former treasurer, Rosalía Iglesias, worked as a furniture restorer, including an alleged harassment of the former ‘popular’ leader in prison.
All this, emphasizes the PSOE, would have been financed with reserved funds. Specifically, it points to the payment of 2,000 euros per month plus expenses and the purchase of a weapon for Ríos and the acquisition of computer equipment.
