The former 'number two' of the Interior affirms that Fernández Díaz was the first to tell him about Kitchen's confidant

Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security, arrived at 9:22 this Thursday at the National Court.

Accompanied by his lawyer, briskly and quietly, the former

of former Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz arrived at court just eight minutes before the appointment set by Judge Manuel García Castellón, before whom he then sat down to offer details about the so-called Operation Kitchen, allegedly hatched at the Interior dome in 2013 to snatch the ex-treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas compromising documentation for senior party officials.

Although Martínez had assured EL PAÍS a few weeks ago that he was going to "tell the judge everything" what he knew, he has not cleared up any of the doubts that are still planned in the case. Even so, he leaves a victim: his former boss, of whom He has assured that he was the first to tell him about the plot's confidant, Sergio Ríos, then Bárcenas' driver. According to his version, the member of the Government of Mariano Rajoy, and a person of his utmost confidence, was aware of the irregular operation From the first moment.

Martínez's testimony was key to knowing if the cause - which this Friday will experience another highlight with the declaration as a defendant of Fernández Díaz - went beyond the Interior.

However, the former Secretary of State has delimited the damage and has confined himself exclusively to his immediate superior, to whom several evidence incorporated in the case already splashed on him.

Among them, the mobile messages that Martínez himself kept and that he assures that the former minister sent him.

“The operation was successful: everything has been overturned (2 iPhone and 1 iPad).

Tomorrow we will have the report […].

Another thing that we can access great and interesting information with the dump made ... we will see.

I inform you, ”says one of them, referring to the alleged electronic devices that the plot snatched from Bárcenas and whose content was downloaded onto a

, as reported by several defendants and witnesses, all of them police officers who participated in that operation .

Martínez, according to legal sources who attended the interrogation, has added new information about the alleged involvement of Fernández Díaz in the

.

Thus, he assured that the minister called him one weekend to tell him that he had been told that there was a confidant in the environment of the Bárcenas family.

The former

of the Interior has affirmed that he asked Commissioner Eugenio Pino, at that time the highest police officer in his capacity as deputy operational director, to contrast the information and he confirmed it.

According to his version, therefore, the minister was aware practically from the beginning that an operation was underway, about which he received information from various sources.

It was for this reason that, when the scandal came to the media and Fernández Díaz said he did not know anything, Martínez decided to take those messages to a notary for ratification.

He was hurt and wanted to make it clear that they knew the Kitchen plot higher up, he explained to the judge.

But this is where Martínez has come, who has only answered the questions of the magistrate and his lawyers.

The former

of the Interior has shielded that he always believed that the operation was legal and that it was aimed at locating the front men and the hidden loot of Bárcenas.

He has even spoken that, with her, an attempt was made to confirm the alleged existence of contacts between the former treasury of the PP and the Italian mafia that had published a medium.

He also added that he never authorized any illegal action, such as the clandestine entry into a workshop and an office of Bárcenas's wife, and that he gave orders that any relevant information be transmitted to the judicial authority.

However, the investigation has shown that, despite the fact that the plot was made with documentation from the treasurer, it was never delivered to the judge of the National Court Pablo Ruz, who was investigating box b of the PP, nor to the agents of the Unit of Economic and Fiscal Crime (UDEF) that were under his orders.

Martinez has avoided throughout the interrogation, which has lasted about three hours, accusing any other member of the Government or the PP.

Thus, de Rajoy has limited himself to stating that he once heard him say that he was not worried about what the former treasurer said.

However, in one of the messages on his cell phone incorporated into the case, Martínez showed his conviction to his interlocutor that the messages that he had included in the notarial deed "necessarily entailed the summons of Jorge and probably Rajoy."

Regarding María Dolores de Cospedal, then secretary general of the party and president of the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha, whom the Prosecutor's Office has also requested to impute, she has only assured that another of the commissioners involved, Andrés Gómez Gordo, who was her advisor She spoke ill of politics and her husband, the businessman Ignacio López del Hierro.

El Gordo's computer

The

of the Interior has tried to dismantle the statement of Commissioner Enrique García Castaño, nicknamed

and head of the police unit in charge of monitoring cases of terrorism and organized crime, the main testimony against him.

García Castaño had assured before the judge that it was Martínez who, in 2013, just after the scandal broke out of the PP box b collected in the so-called Bárcenas papers, told him that the real objective of the espionage was to snatch that compromising documentation for the PP and its leaders that the former treasurer could still save.

He also gave him

the documentation that they had managed to extract illegally from three Bárcenas mobile devices

on a

and even brought him a laptop bought with reserved funds so that he could consult it.

This Thursday, the former secretary of state has acknowledged that he had meetings with this commissioner, but has denied having received that

or the computer.

Martínez has insisted on denying any illegality in the operation and, even, the existence of Operation Kitchen itself with that name.

He has also admitted that with Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, another of the police officers who intervened in the device and who has been in prison since November 2017, he maintained a very fluid relationship because his minister told him so.

He added that this, in turn, had been recommended by Juan Cotino, recently deceased, and that during the Government of José María Aznar he had been Director General of the Police.

Commissioner Eugenio Pino, accused and identified as the man of the

- the group of policemen that emerged in Fernández Díaz's stage at the head of the Interior to gather information on the political rivals of the PP - also pointed to Martínez when he affirmed that the expenses the funds reserved were authorized in person by the then Secretary of State for Security.

Among them, those that were used to pay Bárcenas' driver: 2,000 euros per month for providing information about the former treasurer and his family.

Regarding these payments and others made within Operation Kitchen, such as the purchase of a pistol, Martínez has claimed not to know the details and has taken refuge in the fact that the legislation on the control of these funds was too lax and based on trust.