The summary of Operation Kitchen, the alleged plot hatched within the Ministry of the Interior during the Government of Mariano Rajoy to spy on former treasurer Luis Bárcenas for the benefit of the PP, is already a true time bomb for the conservative formation.
The judge issued a brief order on Monday where he raised the secret of the investigations and pointed directly to the popular administration.
A decision adopted after the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, which requests the imputation of former ministers Jorge Fernández Díaz and María Dolores de Cospedal, attacked them in a harsh writing.
En español
Spanish spying probe points at top Popular Party ex-officials
The words of judge Manuel García-Castellón, expressed in a brief letter of just two pages, broke out on Monday with thunderous force in investigations that have remained under summary secrecy for almost two years.
Despite the fact that the PP has tried to remain silent and the current leadership has been trying for months to distance itself from the corruption cases of the past, the suspicions of the magistrate and the Kitchen Anti-Corruption prosecutors, one of the 25 lines of investigation opened in the
Villarejo case
, they point without palliative to the old top of the conservative formation and the Ministry of the Interior.
Although the judge does not go into details in the order, he does emphasize that a "parapolice operation" was allegedly launched, directed by the "superior or directive bodies of the General State Administration" and that its objective was to steal information from Bárcenas so that The court of the National High Court that was investigating box b of the PP did not agree to it.
This alleged irregular action, paid with reserved funds, was entrusted to commissioners José Manuel Villarejo, in provisional prison since November 2017, and Enrique García Castaño.
It lasted from 2013 to 2015. And its purpose was to obtain "compromising material for senior leaders of the PP"
To achieve their end, according to investigators, the suspects then captured the police officer Sergio Ríos, a driver for the former treasurer's family.
Thus, "through said collaborator, as a person of the marriage's highest trust," the suspects would seize the information in the hands of the former treasurer.
Anti-corruption delves much more in the letter that he sent last week to the judge to request the imputation of Fernández Díaz and Cospedal, as well as that of the latter's husband, the businessman Ignacio López del Hierro.
In this document, the Prosecutor's Office describes the abundant documentation intervened in the investigations, such as the receipts of payments to Sergio Ríos and the alleged use of reserved funds;
the telephone messages seized from Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security and former
number two
of the minister, where he blames his former boss and even sends messages to former President Rajoy;
and the recordings found in Villarejo, which indicate the former general secretary of the PP.
And, with all this, the public prosecutor describes a plot that would have, for now, the two former ministers of Rajoy at the top.
Although he adds: "It is not ruled out that signs of criminality appear against other people."
Regarding Fernández Díaz, the Anticorruption investigators pronounce with great forcefulness: "The indications of his participation in Operation Kitchen are very numerous and conclusive."
“In addition to being the person who exercised the responsibility [of Interior Minister] throughout the period of execution of said illegal operation, he maintained communications with Martínez directly related to the infiltration in the zulo, [where Bárcenas would keep sensitive information], in the moment of obtaining the compromising documentation that was sought, ”says the Prosecutor's Office in its brief.
The telephone messages and the files intervened against Martínez, who is also accused and has twice refused to testify before the judge, are one of the main weapons of the Prosecutor's Office against Fernández Díaz.
According to the letter, for example, the former secretary of state deposited an SMS that he would have received from the minister before a notary, saying: “The operation was carried out successfully.
Everything has been overturned ”.
The information on the mobile also reflects how, as the party puts him aside after the scandal broke out, his anger increases against his former superiors.
A contact, continues the public prosecutor, would come to "acknowledge his involvement in the events investigated": "I am a used prick, but that does not exonerate me.
It is clear that I did not value the risks well.
What I wanted is to be loyal and effective.
Maybe too loyal ”.
According to the investigations, after being excluded from the lists for the general elections of April 2019, Martínez goes to Rajoy so that they do not "leave him lying."
"There is no evidence that he obtained a reply," says the Prosecutor's Office.
Also to Teodoro García Egea, current secretary general of the PP, to whom he says: “I can understand it, but being thrown away and marked as corrupt by my people does me irreparable damage.
There are options we could have talked about.
I am understanding, loyal and committed.
That is precisely why I have gotten into this mess.
Out of loyalty to the party, Jorge Fernández and Rajoy ”.
To a journalist, he also writes: "Jorge's son of a bitch not only goes on saying that he didn't know anything, but on top of that he drops the message that he would not have authorized anything ... When obviously he is the source of all the trouble."
The role of the former minister
The ex-minister Cospedal, who has faced Bárcenas for years, also comes out very badly from the 52-page writing, to which EL PAÍS had access.
The Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that Cospedal would have a “personal interest” in the success of the operation against the popular ex-treasurer.
"From a double perspective", emphasizes Anti-Corruption.
On the one hand, as "as affected by documentation supposedly compromising for herself."
But, also, as general secretary of the party, "there is compromising material with respect to other senior leaders of the same."
The investigators highlight the recordings found where Cospedal and her husband talk with Villarejo, who would have "accepted the execution of specific orders that would be paid for with PP funds."
The commissioner himself boasts in an audio that they ordered the destruction of Bárcenas' hard drives - for which the PP was tried and acquitted.
López del Hierro is credited with acting as an intermediary to entrust Villarejo with the recruitment of the former treasurer's driver.