Judge Manuel García Castellón detailed more than a year ago, in the order to open the abbreviated procedure of the so-called
Kitchen case,
all the evidence accumulated during four years of investigation into this alleged dirty war operation carried out by the political and police leadership of the Ministry of the Interior —under the government of Mariano Rajoy— to hinder the judicial investigations into the PP box b.
According to that investigation, for at least two years (from June 2013 to June 2015) the Interior launched an operation, paid for with reserved funds and in which half a dozen commissioners participated, to spy on former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas and his family, with the intention of stealing documentation that could compromise the Rajoy government in relation to the illegal financing of the party that was being investigated by a court of the National Court.
In this last year, in addition, EL PAÍS has provided new data on this supposed police operation through the publication of the secret audios of corruption (conversations recorded for years by the commissioner José Manuel Villarejo with senior PP officials).
The judge has considered them irrelevant or insufficient to expand the list of defendants, although both the Prosecutor's Office and the popular accusations appealed that decision, without success, to try to get the case reopened, pointing especially to the role played by María Dolores de Cospedal, former secretary general of the PP
This is an excerpt from the account of the facts about Operation Kitchen signed by the examining magistrate García Castellón, and which will bring the former Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, to trial;
his Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, and half a dozen police commissioners:
The minister and his 'number two', in search of evidence about the box b.
"On a date that could not be determined between the years 2012 and 2013, apparently, Jorge Fernández Díaz, Minister of the Interior, and the highest political person in charge of this department, with abuse of his functions and knowledge of his illegality, urged Francisco Martínez Vázquez, who was first his Chief of Staff and since January 2013 Secretary of State for Security, launch a mission aimed at obtaining information and documentation that could be in the possession of the aforementioned Luis Francisco Bárcenas Gutiérrez, in order to to remove said material from the judicial authority in the investigation that was carried out within the framework of the separate piece called 'PAPELES DE BÁRCENAS', within the 'GÜRTEL' procedure.
The police chief entrusts the matter to Villarejo.
“
Francisco Martínez Vázquez assumed the coordination of the operation, which was entrusted, in terms of its planning and development, to the Deputy Director of Operations (DAO), Eugenio Pino Sánchez.
Pino entrusts this operation to José Manuel Villarejo Pérez, who, for its execution, initially uses Marcelino Martín Blas, who was in charge of the Internal Affairs Unit (UAI) of the National Police Corps, and later Enrique García Castaño, in charge of the Central Operational Support Unit (UCAO), who personally assumes the commitment to bring the mission to a successful conclusion, using the Special Monitoring Unit attached to said Unit.
The operation consisted of recruiting a collaborator, close to the Bárcenas family, capable of providing the information and access to the documentation that was being sought.
cook, Kitchen
or
K2,
hence the name of the operation), who since the beginning of February 2013 was the driver of the Bárcenas couple, and a person of maximum confidence in the family environment.
Francisco Martínez Vázquez and Jorge Fernández Díaz, in a meeting after the attacks in Brussels in March 2016.Luis Sevllano Arribas
“(…) The active collaboration of Sergio Javier Ríos Esgueva was in exchange for the delivery of 2,000 euros per month, plus expenses, from the reserved funds, and the subsequent entry into the National Police Force.
The latter, for his part, had to provide information that would allow them to steal documentation in the possession of Luis Bárcenas Gutiérrez and his wife Rosalía Iglesias Villar.
To access this person, Enrique García Castaño and José Manuel Villarejo Pérez used the chief inspector Andrés Gómez Gordo [formerly a high-ranking official in the Government of Dolores de Cospedal in Castilla-La Mancha], who participated with them in the development of the operation".
The commissioners try to extort.
“The purpose that guided both José Manuel Villarejo Pérez and Enrique García Castaño would really be to seize and keep said documentation in his possession, without handing it over to his superiors, in order to obtain some type of personal benefit;
extorting or putting pressure with it on public officials or those responsible for the Ministry of the Interior, or simply with the purpose of preserving their respective positions in the police leadership and impunity in the illegal activities that, allegedly, they had been carrying out in parallel.”
Theft of documentation in the "zulo" of the Bárcenas family.
Said documentation would have been finally located and seized on an undetermined date, but it can be placed in the month of October of the year 2013, and would be found, at least, in the possession of Enrique García Castaño, to whom José Manuel Villarejo Pérez would have insistently claimed a copy, with the knowledge of his superior Eugenio Pino Sánchez.
In order to obtain this information, the investigators would have accessed, without any authorization, the so-called "zulo" located in a commercial premises (door 5) at number 32 of General Díaz Porlier street in Madrid, inside which, apparently, a cabinet with a double bottom from which said documentation was removed.”
Enrique García Castaño, before one of his statements at the National Court.
The police leadership, aware of the illegal operation.
"In the field of the Deputy Operations Directorate, there was full knowledge of the start-up and execution of the so-called Operation Kitchen, as well as its illegal nature since its objective was the theft of evidence from a judicial proceeding, and the employment during its development of reserved funds from the Ministry of the Interior, which would thus be diverted from the strict legally established purposes for its authorization and use”.
Change annoying policemen by order of the minister.
“The main commissioner José Luis Olivera Serrano also had full knowledge of this operation, its illegality and the use of funds reserved for the payment of the collaborator, who, in addition, could have tried to persuade the person in charge of the police investigation carried out before the Central Court of Instruction no.
Despite their status as agents of the authority, none of the aforementioned police officers carried out any action to denounce or prevent the development of this operation of which they were aware.
The Internal Affairs Unit, implicated.
"In the development of the investigated police operation, at least in a first phase, officials from the Internal Affairs Unit would have participated, under the command of the unit's commissioner at that time, Marcelino Martín Blas, who, apparently, knew of the true objectives of the operation and would have disposed of reserved funds authorized for use by the Internal Affairs Unit for the payment of the collaborator Sergio Ríos Esgueva, handing them over to José Manuel Villarejo Pérez physically and without any control or documentary protection.
Subsequently, Martín Blas would have given way to Enrique García Castaño, who [would have] entrusted the Special Monitoring Unit of the UCAO with the surveillance and monitoring of the people and places provided by the recruited collaborator Sergio Ríos Esgueva,
Dump of the Bárcenas telephones.
“The operation could have obtained, among other results, information from Mr. Bárcenas (manager and treasurer of the PP between 1990 and 2009) through the dumping of three mobile phones that the investigated Sergio Ríos Esgueva made available to him.
This dump was carried out, among others, by police officers with professional card no. 18,878 and no. 106,577.
In the development of this operation, Enrique García Castaño would have acquired, charged to the reserved funds, computer equipment, apparently to be able to transfer the content of the information dumped to his superiors, and a pistol for the collaborator Sergio Ríos.
Both purchases were made with the knowledge of at least the Secretary of State,
and for its payment, García Castaño was given a cash receipt from the reserved funds for the following amounts: '1,905.82 euros, purchase computer equipment for SE';
'700 euros, buy a pistol for the cook”.
Commissioner Eugenio Pino, after appearing at the National Court in January 2019. Kike Para
Funds reserved for an illegal operation.
“Once the documentation related to the payments made to the [confidant] Ríos Esgueva was declassified, it has been possible to verify that the monthly request for the allocation of reserved funds was raised from the Deputy Operations Directorate to the Secretary of State for Security.
Given the illegality of the operation, these requests did not comply with the internal regulations of the Ministry of the Interior on the management and control of reserved funds (order communicated by the Minister of Justice and Interior on September 12, 1995), which required that they attach a series of documents accrediting the use of the funds assigned in the previous monthly payment, and that these documents would include the designation of the specific police operation for which reserved funds are requested, extremes that were not met in this case.
The dysfunctions and irregularities in the management and control of these reserved funds would have allowed their illicit use, favoring both the financing of an intrinsically illegal police operation and the personal enrichment of senior police officers.
Thus, the Secretary of State for the Interior released the reserved funds before checking and verifying the documentation that was sent from the Deputy Operations Directorate, despite the fact that it did not comply with the legal regulations that regulated the management of these funds from 1995. .
An irregularity known and allowed by the political leadership.
"This irregular delivery of reserved funds was verbally authorized by the Deputy Director of Operations, Eugenio Pino Sánchez, and was ultimately allowed by the Secretary of State for Security, with the knowledge of the Minister of the Interior."
The operation was hidden from the investigators of the box b.
”Despite being a police operation, neither its implementation nor its results were transmitted to the police investigation unit of the legal proceedings.
The NIV Note UN000029/15 was recorded in the police database GATI in 2015, despite the fact that the monitoring, records and investigations took place in 2013. The agents Fuentes Gago and Díez Sevillano intervened in the documentation of these actions .
Consequently, after the procedures carried out, it must be ruled out that this operation was a kind of police intelligence to promote the investigation of the crime of money laundering that the UDEF Group, which acted as judicial police, had been carrying out”.
The award-winning confidant.
“Once the operation was finished, in payment for the services rendered and in order to ensure his silence, the Secretary of State maneuvered for Sergio Ríos Esgueva to enter the National Police Corps.
Thus, Mr. Ríos acquired the status of police officer of the National Police Corps on 05.16.2017 —police officer with professional card 128,241—, having approved the opposition phase, convened by Resolution of the General Police Directorate dated 06.24. 2014, in the year 2015″.
Luis Bárcenas' former driver, Sergio Ríos, appears in Congress in May 2020. Zipi (EFE)
On trial for evidence of crime.
"For the facts that have just been exposed, the following people must answer criminally: Jorge Fernández Díaz (Minister of the Interior between 2012 and 2016), Francisco Martínez Vázquez (Secretary of State for Security between 2012 and 2016), and the commissioners and policemen Eugenio Pino Sánchez (Deputy Operations Director between 2012 and 2016), José Luis Olivera Serrano, Marcelino Martín Blas, José Ángel Fuentes Gago, Bonifacio Díez Sevillano, José Manuel Villarejo Pérez, Enrique García Castaño, Andrés Manuel Gómez Gordo, and Sergio Ríos Esgueva”.
Bribery, embezzlement, influence peddling, disclosure of secrets, prevarication.
"The facts described may constitute the following crimes of the Criminal Code, without prejudice to a subsequent classification by the public prosecutor, and the accusations brought: discovery and disclosure of secrets (article 197 of the Criminal Code), prevarication (articles 404, 405 and 406), omission of the duty to prosecute crimes (article 408), bribery (article 419), influence peddling (articles 428 and 430) and embezzlement (articles 432 and 433)”.
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