The former director of the CNI denies any involvement in Kitchen and lashes out at Villarejo for his “cruel lies”

The former director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Félix Sanz Roldán, has assured this Monday in the National Court that the organization he directed had "no" participation in the so-called Operation Kitchen. During his statement as a witness, he explained that he reported the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo not for personal reasons, but for the need to respond to what he considered "such cruel lies" against his subordinates.

To questions from prosecutor César de Rivas Verdes-Montenegro, Sanz Roldán has been emphatic in denying any action by the CNI in this operation: “The CNI had no activity whatsoever on the case, none, absolute zero”. Furthermore, he has stressed that the intelligence service always acts within legality and under the directives of the Government, emphasizing that during his time at the head of the organization no Executive asked him to carry out illegal actions.

Operation Kitchen investigates an alleged parapolice device launched in 2013 from the Ministry of Interior during the Government of the Popular Party chaired by Mariano Rajoy. The objective would have been to extract information from the party's former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, to prevent him from compromising leaders of the party within the framework of the Gürtel case and the investigation into the alleged “B box”.

In the same session, the Civil Guard colonel Manuel Sánchez Corbí also testified, who directed the Central Operative Unit (UCO). Corbí has denied that the Civil Guard tried to recruit as an informant Bárcenas' former driver, Sergio Ríos, assuring that “he was never the object of investigation” by his unit.

The trial, which has entered its second month in the Audiencia Nacional, features a long list of defendants, among them the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz and his then Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez, as well as police commanders like Eugenio Pino. The Fiscalía Anticorrupción requests sentences of up to 15 years in prison for several of them, while for Villarejo it demands 19 years.

Throughout this week, the statements of other witnesses are also scheduled, such as the businessman Javier Pérez Dolset or the former deputy operational director of the Police Agustín Linares, in addition to the anti-corruption prosecutor Miguel Serrano. The process, which already totals more than 150 witnesses, will continue with the appearance of the accused starting next May 14.