A former Spanish defense minister on Tuesday categorically denied taking part in an alleged espionage case involving the right-wing PP party, in which the informant was paid with public funds.
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Investigators had indicated in September 2020 that they were interested in the recruitment in 2013 of a driver who would have served as a spy, responsible for finding out about the former treasurer of the PP, Luis Barcenas.
At the time, the latter was at the center of the investigation into the "
Gürtel
"
affair
, a scandal of illegal financing through the manipulation of public contracts and which earned him a sentence of 33 years in prison.
According to the prosecution, the driver received 2000 euros per month, as well as the promise of future employment in the police, in exchange for information on "
compromising documents
" for the PP and his senior officials that Barcenas and his wife could have in their possession.
"On several occasions
"
Questioned for 90 minutes, Maria Dolores Cospedal, heavyweight of the PP and the government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (2011-2018), Minister of Defense from 2016 to 2018, denied having played any role in the recruitment of the driver, said judicial sources.
If she admitted having met "
on several occasions
" the sulphurous police chief José Manuel Villarejo, who had been presented to her as a consultant "
with excellent connections
", she explained that she had never asked him to work for her. .
Speaking to the prosecutor, she said she did not know if Villarejo was behind the espionage and had "
never given him any particular task
" or "
ordered any payment."
".
These are the agendas of the ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, known for having registered without their knowledge many personalities and at the center of this operation, which implicated the ex-Minister of Defense and her husband.