Villarejo's lawyer confirms to the judge that Leire Díez offered him to arrange a meeting with the attorney general, which never materialized

The lawyer for former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, Antonio José García Cabrera, appeared this Wednesday as a witness before Judge Santiago Pedraz, instructor of the 'Leire case' in the Audiencia Nacional. His statement, lasting barely five minutes, served to ratify before the magistrate what, according to Europa Press sources, he had already conveyed to the Civil Guard on May 28.

According to his version, Leire Díez met with him on two occasions during 2024 to discuss various information published against Villarejo, and in that context, she conveyed to him the possibility of reaching an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office, considering the accusation against his client in the 'Tándem' case unfair. García Cabrera explained that, after failed attempts to approach the anti-corruption prosecutor who was investigating the 'Kitchen case', Díez assured him that he would be received by the then Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz. That meeting, as the lawyer reiterated, never took place, neither with the Attorney General nor with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.

Likewise, he reiterated before the magistrate the assessment that he had already conveyed to the investigators about those contacts. In his statement, he insisted that the proposals and explanations he received from Leire Díez seemed "very little credible" and "very fanciful" to him, which is why he never followed up on those efforts.

One of the central points of his appearance has been the document known as "Agreement V", a photograph found in Leire Díez's possession that investigators liken to a contract. The text refers to an unidentified client, who according to the investigation would be Villarejo himself, who should attend a meeting with the Prosecutor's Office convened by Díez, described in the document as "the one in charge", to achieve a pact that would prevent his re-entry into prison in exchange for a financial fine and information about former president Mariano Rajoy, about other defendants in the 'Kitchen case' or about the well-known 'Operation Catalonia'. García Cabrera denied before the judge having participated in the drafting of that document.

The businessman maintains his version about Díez's efforts

The second testimony of the day was that of Joaquín Parra, an Extremaduran businessman and former president of C.D. Badajoz, convicted by the Audiencia Nacional for a crime against the Public Treasury and also prosecuted for tax fraud in the hydrocarbon sector. Before Pedraz, Parra confirmed the account he had already given to the UCO, in which he maintained that Leire Díez asked him, in exchange for helping him in his own judicial processes, for data or contacts capable of damaging the reputation of Beatriz Biedma, the judge who investigated the case against David Sánchez, brother of the President of the Government, for an alleged case of cronyism in the Provincial Council of Badajoz.

Parra explained that he met the former socialist militant through businessman Javier Pérez Dolset, also investigated in this case, who introduced her as a person capable of helping him with the judicial problems he was going through. In that context, the businessman assured that Díez even told him that it was necessary to "clean up" certain situations, alluding to the investigations that, according to her, had affected both her family environment and other people. The UCO's account includes a phrase that Díez allegedly addressed to Parra to justify her way of acting: "When you suffer injustices in your own flesh, when your wife and brother are indicted, then you realize that you have to clean up."

In his appearance this Wednesday, the businessman admitted that he recorded the meetings held with Díez, although he has not yet handed over those recordings; the prosecutor has formally requested them to incorporate them into the case. Parra has also corroborated another of the elements that was already circulating in the investigation about the existence of an apartment in the center of Madrid that Díez herself described as a "safe house" of the PSOE.