This Monday, April 6, the oral trial of the ‘Kitchen’ case begins in the National Court, where the alleged police espionage operation against the former treasurer of the Popular Party Luis Bárcenas will be judged, in order to protect the ‘popular’ formation from the investigations of the Gürtel case, the largest corruption plot that points to the PP. The trial will last until June 30.
During the Government of Mariano Rajoy, between the years 2013 and 2015, the so-called ‘Operation Kitchen’ took place, an alleged police operation, promoted without judicial knowledge, by the National Police, to spy on the former treasurer of the Popular Party Luis Bárcenas, with the aim of stealing the documents that he might store and that might harm the political party in the Gürtel, in order to protect and safeguard the interests of the party during the investigation -carried out by magistrate Pablo Ruz. At that moment, the former treasurer had threatened to reveal information that could harm Rajoy's leadership. Thus, high-ranking police officers began to record the conversations and follow Bárcenas' movements.
The operation is forged thanks to the collaboration of the main figure of the ‘Kitchen’, former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, who is in charge of contacting Bárcenas' driver, Sergio Ríos, nicknamed the “chef”, to monitor the former treasurer's family, tap conversations, follow movements and deliver documents and recordings that Bárcenas kept in a workshop that could harm the PP. Likewise, he facilitated Villarejo's entry to the workshop and was rewarded for these actions with the payment of 2,000 euros monthly from reserved funds and joined the National Police in 2017 -suspended in 2021 due to the case.
The summary includes a total of 53,000 euros of reserved funds from the Ministry of Interior that were diverted to the monthly payment of 2,000 euros to Ríos -25 monthly payments from July 2013 to September 2015-, additional expenses of 2,574 euros in meals, 496 euros in transport, 195 euros miscellaneous, and 700 euros for a pistol and computer equipment. The receipts, signed by hand by Ríos, were falsely justified as "prevention and security efforts". Villarejo and Gómez Gordo -advisor to María Dolores de Cospedal- managed them directly from Interior.
In that period, the Ministry of Interior (2011-2016) was headed by Jorge Fernández Díaz, for whom the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office requests 15 years in prison for being the figure who activates the operation, according to the investigating judge, Manuel García-Castellón. In the same way, Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security, is accused of deploying the operation and leaving it under the command of Eugenio Pino, former Deputy Director of the Police (DAO) and known in turn for being the architect of the patriotic police.
Other defendants who will have to attend the trial that begins this Monday and will last three months are, according to the accusations of the investigating judge, Marcelino Martín-Blas, police commissioner who diverted public funds to pay the driver; Andrés Gómez Gordo, commissioner who admitted to the magistrate that he paid with public funds (he is spared from sitting on the bench due to health problems); Bonifacio Díez Sevilla, police inspector, aware of the plot, like chief inspector José Ángel Fuentes Gago and commissioner José Luis Olivera.
The Public Prosecutor's Office highlighted the “intervention of other people” and Anticorruption managed to have the general secretary of the PP with Mariano Rajoy indicted, María Dolores de Cospedal and her husband Ignacio López del Hierro, however, they were left out of the case by determination of the investigating judge.
Among the accused there is no 'popular' nor is the party itself found, reason why the PSOE and Podemos are going to appear as popular prosecution. While the purples support the accusation and have already promoted previous political commissions, the socialists demand precautionary measures and, according to 'El País', in the preliminary questions phase of the trial, they will request that, in case of conviction, the PP take charge of the 53,000 euros of the reserved funds that were diverted to pay Sergio Ríos.
In the same way, Mariano Rajoy, María Dolores de Cospedal and Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, will testify as witnesses on April 23.
