Former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, sentenced to 19 years in prison for the Tandem case, will continue to enjoy freedom after the same court that sentenced him yesterday rejected the request of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office for him to enter preventive prison.
The magistrates of the fourth section of the criminal court of the National Court decided to set a series of measures, such as mandatory appearances in court every fortnight or the ban on leaving the country, although they understand that the circumstances do not exist to send him to prison if the sentence is not final. For judges today, there is no risk of flight because, since he was released in February 2020 after three years of pre-trial detention, Villarejo has responded to all court summonses and appeared at all sessions of the trial except in those whose absence was authorized.
In addition, the court warns that the crimes for which the ex-commissioner was convicted were not of extreme gravity, such as to justify imprisonment, but that the conviction is the result of various penalties for concealment and disclosure of secrets and falsehood in commercial document. “The fact of the high penalties imposed does not entail a sufficient autonomous justification to determine the legitimacy of the adoption of this measure, and they must be assessed in conjunction with the other requirements”, states the resolution.
“I was carrying my briefcase, with the four underpants to go back there [Estremera penitentiary]. I didn’t expect to have a good entry with the director, but I don’t care much either…”, said the ex-agent, known member of the so-called sewers of the State, when he left the National Court. “I will never run away from justice”, insisted Villarejo, who took advantage of the presence of journalists to defend himself against the accusations and deny that he was a corrupt policeman, before the court’s decision was made public. The ex-commissioner lashed out at the prosecutors and the internal affairs unit in charge of the investigation, which already took him to pre-trial detention in November 2017.
For Villarejo, the sentence has shown that he is not corrupt, because he has been acquitted of the crime of bribery, even if he has been convicted of several crimes of revealing secrets. In his opinion, it has been established that he is a person who worked with authorization and with cover as an intelligence agent.