Minutes after it became known that the Supreme Court annulled the dismissal of Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos as head of the Command of the Civil Guard in Madrid, ordered in 2020 by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, a the department’s spokesperson issued this encrypted message: “We reiterate that the fundamental reasons that decided the dismissal persist and have been confirmed and consolidated with the elements known later.” No further explanation about the hard blow that the High Court has dealt.
The head of the Interior kept those reasons to verbalize them himself and climb one more step in the defiance he has maintained for years with the deposed colonel. It was yesterday during the control session in the Government, when the minister suggested that Pérez de los Cobos was part of the political police that used reserved funds to try to destroy evidence that incriminated the Popular Party in corruption.
Pérez de los Cobos was director of the Office of Coordination and Studies of the Secretary of State for Security during the darkest years of the Ministry of the Interior, with Jorge Fernández Díaz at the helm. Among other functions, there was that of treasurer of the reserved funds. Of the annual millions available to the Interior, the investigation of the Kitchen case has proven that more than 50,000 euros were used to pay the expenses incurred by the illegal espionage that was carried out on the ex-treasurer of the PP , Luis Barcenas.
Despite this, Pérez de los Cobos has never been imputed in the case that has been instructed to the National Court, for which the Prosecutor’s Office is asking Fernández Díaz for 15 years in prison. He was only going to testify – as a witness – before judge Manuel García Castellón to explain that he was never aware of the parapolice operation.
He claimed that his control was merely accounting and he did not know the specifics of how much was being paid. Explanations that did not convince the Marlaska Interior team, from where their involvement has always been suspected. Hence this “lack of trust”. But until now, this doubt had never been verbalized, in the mouth of the minister, with light and shorthand.
“Would you have confidence in those people who managed the reserved funds?” asked the deputy of the Popular Party who formulated the question. Then he raised his voice. “They managed it without adequate control, they had to be declassified at the request of the judicial authority and it is on file and with this lack of control they allowed the reserved funds to be used to destroy evidence so that the Popular Party could hide the responsibility”, accused Marlaska without pronouncing either the word Kitchen or the surnames of the colonel who assumed the coordination of the police device in the referendum of 1-O under the application of article 155. And he completed his intervention visibly upset. “This Minister of the Interior has not had, does not have and will not have confidence in these types of people”.
The former magistrate of the National Court did not mention that the relief of Pérez de los Cobos took place days after it was known that the Madrid Civil Guard sent, without the knowledge of the Interior, a report to the judge who was investigating the possible relationship of covid infections and the demonstration of 8- M. Marlaska gave contradictory versions. At first he said that the dismissal was due to a change of teams and then that “lack of trust” was alleged.
The ministry is yet to learn the full content of the Supreme Court’s resolution that obliges the command of the Civil Guard to be returned to the head of the Madrid Command. Government sources explain to this newspaper that, at the moment, there are two options on the table that are being studied: to present an appeal before the Constitutional Court or – the one that takes on more weight – to dismiss him again, taking into account the guidelines that he sets the Supreme