The retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, upon his arrival this Tuesday at the National Court. KIKE PARA
José Manuel Villarejo has once again interpreted Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo this Tuesday: that loquacious and talkative agent, with an infinite and convoluted speech, who presents himself as a supposed statesman fallen into disgrace due to the animosity of his enemies.
The former police officer has put the finishing touch to the first major trial held against him at the National High Court, where he has intervened as a lawyer (he defends himself, in collaboration with the lawyer Antonio García Cabrera) to expose the final conclusions of the.
Villarejo has sold his version for almost two hours, before later giving up exercising his right to the last word, to the smiles of the court: “The
Villarejo case
is a red code.
Remember that famous
A Few Good Men movie
...”, has been launched to say in his plea.
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Villarejo's lawyer: "The Police have counted, count and will count on other Villarejos"
The former police officer, the epicenter of an alleged corruption macroplot, has used the plot of that film as a metaphor to present himself as a victim: “In that film, a military commander ordered the elimination of one of his men.
But since it was illegal to apply that
red code,
everyone denied it.
Until the trial revealed that the high command ordered it," said Villarejo, before pointing to his well-known adversary, the "chief of the CNI", Félix Sanz Roldán, as the person who "ordered that code red to be applied to one of the of his own”, to him.
"My client had been retired for more than a year when they decided to teach him a lesson," he added, referring to himself in the third person.
It is not the first time that Villarejo uses the popular imagination to defend himself.
When he was in provisional prison, where he spent more than three years until March 2021, he presented himself as The Count of Monte Cristo, a fictional character unjustly imprisoned, created by the writer Alejandro Dumas and later played on the screen by the French actor Gérard Depardieu. .
His lawyer also compared him on Monday with Donnie Brasco, the undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the New York mob, played by Johnny Depp in the movies.
This Tuesday, with all the cards already on the table, Villarejo has used his turn of conclusions to attack all the investigation that corners him.
He has defined it as a "general cause", "illegal" and "prospective": "My client's entire life is investigated to see what can be found".
According to him, he was imprisoned because “he was the only one who could tell the truth”: “The conspirators transmitted an order to the prosecutors: 'That he always remain a prisoner'.
“The abuse of Law has been institutionalized”, he has continued in his extensive intervention: “Are we going to cover our noses in the face of so much rot?
Will the citizenry continue to think that justice is serious and equal for all?
Is everything worth it to eliminate a problematic element for the State, as the head of the CNI of my client considered?
"Everything was worth to finish with Villarejo",
The defense faced a difficult challenge: to destroy all the evidence that the accusations have put on the table —confessions, recordings, documentation, police reports...—.
The Prosecutor's Office maintains that the commissioner abused his police status to access confidential data, which he later sold to individuals and companies for thousands of euros.
A thesis supported by the Internal Affairs Unit (UAI), which described the "complex corporate structure" designed by Villarejo to hide and move the money he obtained from his illicit activity, with tentacles in the United Kingdom, Panama or Paraguay.
Treasury experts also pointed in the same direction.
However, the defendant assures that these businesses were part of his cover as an undercover agent.
The commissioner settles accounts
Villarejo's defense began its final exposition this Monday, when he presented it as a "necessary" instrument of the State: "The Police has counted, counts and will count on other
Villarejos
", summed up his lawyer Antonio García Cabrera, who this Tuesday has continued with said allegation.
“It seems clear that Villarejo had many declared enemies”, the lawyer insisted: “Dangerous friendships that, in the end, have left him lying.
And we are going to start with the CNI, with whom he has a relationship that was one of love and today is one of hate, at least in the managerial field...”.
The commissioner, who later spoke as a lawyer, also took the opportunity to settle accounts and attacked Félix Sanz Roldán, former director general of the CNI;
The prosecutors;
the Internal Affairs Unit (UAI) of the Police;
and the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard.
Villarejo has accused all of them of colluding to "finish" him.
“Can a cause that was born vitiated be maintained, [...] with everyone in cahoots?”, the main defendant in this macro-trial, who has been described as a professional with “impeccable reputation until Sanz Roldán decided to apply the red code”.
The trial of Villarejo, who has been accompanied on the bench by 26 other people (including his wife and son), still has one last session left.
This Wednesday the final day will be held, where another of the defendants (Constancio Riaño, police inspector and alleged collaborator in the plot) will be able to exercise his right to the last word.
When that phase is over, Judge Ángela Murillo will declare the trial seen for sentencing.
Almost a year will have passed since some of the commissioner's private businesses began to be scrutinized in court, for whom the Prosecutor's Office is requesting a prison sentence of more than 80 years.
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