Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, at the National High Court at the beginning of September. KIKE PARA
José Manuel Villarejo is running out of opportunities.
And the weather.
The National Court will host this week the last sessions of the first major trial of the retired commissioner, according to the court's forecast.
Almost a year after this media oral hearing began, the defense of the former Police agent will now be able to present his conclusions and will try to counteract the battery of evidence presented by the accusations — confessions, audios, documentation, police reports... .—.—.
Later, as icing on the cake, Villarejo himself will have the opportunity to speak to exercise his right to the last word.
The judges anticipate that he can do it this Tuesday.
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Villarejo's "puppets" distance themselves from their plot
Thus, when the trial is seen for sentencing, a new scenario will be opened.
The court, presided over by Judge Ángela Murillo, will get to work on a sentence that will mark the future of the macro-cause officially baptized as
the Tandem case
, and popularly as
the Villarejo case
, of which this oral hearing is a small part —in it they have prosecuted only three of the more than 30 lines of investigation of the summary—.
In addition, an unfavorable opinion for the commissioner opens the door to his return to prison, where he spent more than three years provisionally and from where he left in March 2021.
Villarejo, for whom the Prosecutor's Office asks for more than 80 years in prison, knows the dark horizon he faces and, therefore, his defense will scrutinize this week any nook and cranny that allows him to avoid a first conviction.
He will have it hard.
His lawyer has already tried to delay the trial, he tried to annul the audios that the commissioner recorded for years for his business;
he wanted to recuse the magistrates of the court;
and he denounced irregularities in the investigation.
Unsuccessfully.
These are the main cards that the accusation has put on the table to lock up the commissioner, who is left more and more alone after some of his collaborators distanced themselves from him:
confessed clients.
The Prosecutor's Office made an effort to go to trial with a great ace up its sleeve: the confession of the clients who took over Villarejo's services for espionage projects.
Previous agreement with the public ministry, those responsible for the law firm Herrero & Asociados;
Susana García-Cereceda, heir to the promoter who built the luxury urbanization La Finca in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid);
and the brothers Fernando and Juan Muñoz-Tamara, businessmen, have admitted during the hearing that they hired the commissioner to provide them with confidential data.
Police.
Inspector number 111,470, the main investigator in the Villarejo case, described the "complex corporate structure" allegedly designed by the commissioner to hide and move the money he obtained from his illicit activity, with tentacles abroad.
The inspector broke down all the incriminating documentation that was seized and stressed that Villarejo "abused his police status" to sell sensitive information about the victims and then even blackmail them for the benefit of his clients.
Tax authorities.
The passage of the experts from the Tax Agency through the Court delved deeper into the wound.
They described the Villarejo business group as "a very large corporate network", in which there were "considerable movements of capital abroad" and in which the companies changed their names several times.
In his opinion, there was an intention to hide their jobs because of the way they were paid.
Your audio.
The commissioner's penchant for recording his conversations has become a weapon against him.
His defense knew it and, since the trial began, he tried to annul the audios so that they were not valid as evidence.
In these recordings, reproduced at the hearing, his gossip is revealed and he is heard telling how he prepared reports “with data that we have obtained in that way…”: “That it is not convenient to make available to justice.”
The victims.
In the trial sessions another story was heard that, until now, had barely had an echo: that of the victims of Villarejo, who narrated how they suffered "monitoring", attacks on their privacy, extortion attempts... One of the most intense statements it starred Yolanda García-Cereceda, daughter of the late promoter of La Finca.
Her own sister, Susana, ordered to spy on her.
"There were many economic interests involved and even the harm of taking my children away from me," explained Yolanda, who accused her relative of "using" Villarejo to keep her legally incapacitated: "He used it to lengthen the time of my incapacity, which was gestated so that it was for life... I have not seen my inheritance.
I have not been able to have a single day of vacation with my children until I regained my capacity, ”she described excitedly.
“It is being quite hard,” added Francisco Urquía, a lawyer who was recorded by the plot consuming drugs to presumably extort him, as well as his client, businessman Mateo Martín.
The latter affirmed that he even felt "threatened" and in danger, and explained how he came to live with his children in the town house because he is above a bakery where there is someone 24 hours a day.
Nor did the partners and workers of the Balder law firm fall short, spied on by order of the rival firm Herrero & Asociados.
These detailed car tailings and "rare visits" from strangers under assumed names asking about their work.
They affirmed that a "psychosis" was generated that their relatives also suffered.
This is how the wife of one of them described it: “They know everything about me, everything I do.
Where do I shop, where do I live, with whom and where do I eat on the weekend, what school do my children go to, what extracurricular activities do they have… They know my life”.
At war with the court
José Manuel Villarejo has experienced the trial as a true personal war.
Not only against the Prosecutor's Office and the rest of the accusations, but also against the court, chaired by Ángela Murillo.
The commissioner has been involved in successive clashes with the judge, whom he has accused of treating him in a discriminatory manner, while the magistrate has called him to order on countless occasions due to his interruptions or for going too far in his interventions.
"Do you want to listen to me?"
Murillo snapped at him on one occasion.
"I pay attention to him!"
he replied.
The commissioner's strategy has included the attempt to remove the three magistrates from the court, whom he has challenged up to at least four times for, according to him, having formed a "full conviction of the accused when the trial has not yet finished ”.
However, the National Court has rejected his successive claims, which would have forced the process to be delayed and, therefore, would have delayed the ruling on the sentence that could lead to many years in prison.
At this point, the Prosecutor's Office considers that Villarejo has acted with "procedural bad faith" and with a "spurious" interest.
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