The National Court has rejected the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the accusations for the ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo and his ex-partner Rafael Redondo to enter prison.
In an order, the magistrates of the court that sentenced the former official to 19 years in prison impose on the two convicted the obligation to appear in the court of their domicile every fifteen days and also before the Court whenever they were required, the prohibition to leave the national territory, withdrawal of passport and communication of any change of address.
The Chamber considers that the existence of a high sentence is not only required to agree to imprisonment, since this must be accompanied by adverse circumstances that show a risk of escape. And in this case, it points out that Villarejo was in prison from November 3, 2017 to February 10, 2020, that he has responded to all judicial appeals and has appeared at all trial sessions except those in which he was authorized. your absence. He also points out that he went to the Court Secretariat without delay to be notified of the sentence despite the fact that he was aware of the conviction.
The Court explains that Villarejo has been sentenced to 19 years in prison, but it was not due to an extremely serious crime deserving of such a severe punitive sanction, but that this sentence results from the addition of sentences imposed for crimes of concealment and disclosure of company and private secrets (four) and falsification of commercial documents (two).
“The mere fact of the high sentences imposed does not entail a sufficient autonomous justification to determine the legitimacy of the adoption of this measure, and must be assessed in conjunction with the other requirements, it is not enough to attend only to the seriousness of the sentence specifically imposed” , says the car.
The court that sentenced him in the first trial for the macro-cause called Tándem held today the ‘vistilla’, in which the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has requested his entry into prison due to the risk of flight due to the high penalty of the sentence and the many pending cases that still weigh on him.
During the appearance, his lawyer has defended that there is no such risk of escape, that Villarejo is willing to collaborate with Justice and that he has not escaped since he was released in March 2021.
“I brought my little suitcase, with my four gayumbos to go back there (Estremera prison). I didn’t expect to have a good entrance with the director but I don’t care too much either…”. With this sentence, the ex-commissioner left the door of the National Court in freedom waiting for the Chamber to decide if he should enter prison provisionally until the appeal against the sentence that has sentenced him to 19 years in prison is resolved. .
After listening to the arguments of the prosecution and the lawyers, both for Villarejo and his former partner Rafael Redondo, the court let them leave until a decision was made. Since the sentence is not final and can be appealed, the admission would be preventive and not an effective fulfillment of the sentence, which only begins when the last judicial instance resolves.
“I will never run away from justice,” Villarejo snapped as he left the National Court, where he defended before journalists that he is not a corrupt police officer and has attacked the prosecutors and the Internal Affairs Unit in charge of carrying out the investigation. against him, which already took him to prison in November 2017 after his arrest.
For Villarejo, the sentence has shown that he is not corrupt because he has been acquitted of the crime of bribery, although he has been convicted of several crimes of revealing secrets. In his opinion, it has been verified that he is a person who worked with authorization and cover as an intelligence agent.
Villarejo has once again sown doubt about the investigations against him for being a manipulation to silence him. “As long as they don’t get me pregnant, I don’t know what else can happen to me”, he ironized before leaving.
Despite the fact that the sentence is almost two decades in prison, it is far from the more than 80 years that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor requested. The court has sentenced him for the crimes of revealing secrets and falsifying a commercial document but has acquitted him for bribery and extortion. The withdrawal of bribery is key to the rest of the cases because according to this sentence Villarejo sold his private business, through the Cenyt company, not the police company, therefore despite being a public official he did not act as such.
“The activity carried out by the defendant, in no case had the purpose of undermining the legitimacy and criteria of action of the Public Administration, but to obtain greater private benefits by offering a series of services that are difficult to achieve, at least through legal channels”, pick up the sentence.