The National Court has issued its first ruling on the Villarejo case this Monday. The court sentences the now retired commissioner to 19 years in prison and has also ruled on the other 26 individuals on trial, including Juan Muñoz, the husband of the veteran television presenter Ana Rosa Quintana, who has also been sentenced to a three-month prison sentence for discovering secrets against Martín Navarro.
The court made up of Ángela Murillo, Carmen Paloma González and Fermín Echarri has ruled out the crime of bribery, both active and passive, that is the backbone of the macro-cause, considering that Villarejo, although he was still a policeman when he carried out the orders judged with his business group, CENYT, acted in an “absolutely private sphere”.
Juan and Fernando Muñoz Támara (Ana ROsa’s husband and brother-in-law) are implicated in Pintor, the piece of the trial that addressed alleged hiring by the two businessmen of Villarejo between 2016 and 2017 to irregularly find out data and information about the assets of a former partner, Mateo Martín Navarro, also known as the painter, and his lawyer Francisco Javier Urquía.
In this part of the judicial process, the only two sentenced to three months in prison for the crime of discovery are the Muñoz Tamara brothers. According to the account of proven facts, Villarejo participated in the preparation and recording of a video in 2006 where the then judge Francisco Javier Urquía, who was intended to be “pressured”, appeared consuming drugs.
Eleven years later, these images were exhibited at a meeting with ‘Painter’s’ clients, Juan and Fernando Muñoz Támara, at the CENYT offices in Torre Picasso, where the curator’s son “limited himself” to “connecting a cable” without joining the meeting. The magistrates have also sentenced ‘Pintor’, on the assignment to Villarejo of the Muñoz Támara brothers to find information from a former partner, Mateo Martín Navarro, and the latter’s lawyer, former judge Urquía, that would allow them to resolve a tax dispute in his favor.
Here, they have acquitted Villarejo and Redondo, in addition to the policemen Antonio Bonilla and Francisco Javier Pérez, of the crimes of discovery and disclosure of secrets and attempted extortion, emphasizing on this second crime that “the lack of evidence in this regard is absolute”. In the same way, they have exonerated the group of private detectives who would have collaborated with Villarejo to carry out this assignment, including the alleged former CNI agent Gervasio Cañabate, from the crime of discovery and disclosure of secrets.
Likewise, the court has acquitted the Muñoz Támara and the lawyer who would have helped them in their negotiations with the commissioner, Ricardo Álvarez-Ossorio, of the extortion attempt. However, it has sentenced the brothers, who confessed to the facts, to three months in prison for the discovery of secrets against Martín Navarro, whom they must compensate with 5,000 euros, although it has clarified that “the provisional prison time suffered for this cause will be credited to them”.
