One of the great judicial processes opened in the sewers of the State will end in trial with the former top of the Ministry of the Interior established in the dock for the well-known Kitchen operation.
The former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz faces 15 years in prison for orchestrating a parapolice operation to steal data from the ex-treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas that could harm the leadership of the PP and in particular the then president of the central government Mariano Rajoy.
The judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón has agreed to the opening of an oral trial against Fernández Díaz and the former head of the ministry that he for the so-called Operation Kitchen, known as one of the large operations directed by the sewers of the State, which had members such as former police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, recently sentenced to 19 years in prison.
In an interlocutory hearing, the magistrate rejects as extemporaneous the request of the prosecution exercised by the PSOE to declare the civil liability for profit of the PP and establishes it, in a subsidiary way, for the General Administration of the State in the case that those investigated were convicted.
The order to open an oral trial includes all the crimes raised by the accusations (Fiscalia, Advocacia de l’Estat, PSOE, Podem and the Bárcenas family) in their respective writings and which include several crimes, such as discovery and disclosure of secrets, prevarication, omission of the duty to prosecute crimes, bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement, cover-up, against privacy and obstruction of justice.
In the case of the lawyers of the socialist party, Podemos and the Bárcenas family, they also add those of criminal organization or illegal association, among others.
In the indictment, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 15 years in prison and 33 years of disqualification for the former minister for having orchestrated an operation to steal sensitive information from Bárcenas about the alleged B accounting of the PP.
From the top of the party it was feared that Bárcenas, who had become enemy number one of the popular formation, could leak information to bring down its president. In fact, it was the verdict in the Gürtel case, which affected the corruption of the PP, that caused a motion of no confidence in Rajoy, which ended his government and made Pedro Sánchez president.
With regard to the civil liability of the PP requested by the PSOE, remember that up to this point, in this part of the Tándem case, no claim has been made in this sense against the PP and that, therefore, following the doctrine of Supreme Court, it is extemporaneous, taking into account, moreover, that it is done without specifying the amount or the concrete facts and actions from which the aforementioned responsibility emanates, since “there is a lack of relationship between the facts that they support the claim and the person against whom the civil action is brought”. In other words, in this case the judge leaves the PP completely out of this case, despite the fact that the Prosecutor’s Office already tried to charge the party’s general secretary at the time, María Dolores de Cospedal, because he understood that the ultimate beneficiary of the theft of data was the same party. The judge went so far as to name the former Minister of Defense and her husband as investigated, although he later dismissed the case against both.
In addition to the former minister, the judge sent to trial the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez; former deputy operational director Eugenio Pino; police officers José Luis Olivera, Marcelino Martín Blas, José Ángel Fuentes Gago, Bonifacio Díez Sevillano, Enrique García Castaño, Andrés Manuel Gómez Gordo; the retired commissioner and principal investigated in the macro case Tándem José Manuel Villarejo, and also the driver of Bárcenas, Sergio Ríos Esgueva.
With regard to Olivera, Fuentes Gago and Díez Sevillano, for whom the prosecutor had requested a provisional dismissal, the instructor rejects this request and asks the public ministry to formulate an indictment within three days or to give it up.
The resolution agrees to impose civil liability bonds of 120,000 euros for Jorge Fernández Díaz, Francisco Martínez and Eugenio Pino, 100,000 euros for Villarejo and Sergio Ríos, 20,000 euros for Andrés Manuel Gómez Gordo and 3,000 euros for the rest, except García Castaño, to whom a bond of 2,000 euros is imposed.
