The head of the Central Court of Instruction number 6 of the National Court, Manuel García Castellón, has refused to cite the former Secretary General of the PP María Dolores de Cospedal as being investigated for the audios leaked this summer in which she is heard leaving with Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo about the former popular treasurer Luis Bárcenas. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office had established, based on a request from the PSOE, the opening of a separate room, outside the Kitchen, which is already finished, to investigate the audios and take a statement. There will be a piece to analyze the tapes that are filtered, but no citation of the former popular leader.
In orders signed this Tuesday, García Castellón finds that there is no place for the claim because he hears that "there are no reasons that justify the exercise of criminal actions against Cospedal" or "new facts" in those recordings that contribute more than what was already stated in the kitchen. He points out that the claim to charge Cospedal "reduces almost nuclear to a few minutes of an audio cut whose origin is unknown, but in any circumstance and context."
"Based on a statement made by Ms. Cospedal, the inference reached by the proceedings was made, a conclusion that cannot be shared with a minimum of procedural rigor," he says. She refers to the fragment of these tapes in which she tells the commissioner that he agrees to prevent the publication of the "little notebook" of former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas.
For the PSOE, these audios reflect Cospedal's participation in the kitchen, which is why the instructor has well ruled out that she was involved in a decision that was endorsed by the Criminal Chamber of the National Court, the same one that would also confirm the prosecution of the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz and the one who was his number 2, Francisco Martínez, and several police officers for the alleged maneuvers to support documentation to Bárcenas.
“Examining the actions, the existence of 'new facts' that justified leaving the auto signature without effect is not appreciated. On the contrary, the elements provided do nothing more than corroborate extremes already referred to in the account of events, in accordance with the existence of a plot in the terms established in the resolution, ”explains the order.
In the opinion of the instructor, "the suspicions intend, ultimately, what they have not achieved so far, to urge a new investigation that is directed against Cospedal once the possibility of doing so by means of a reform and appeal remedy has been frustrated." He answers the Prosecutor's Office that if he is convinced that Cospedal deserves a criminal charge, he can file a complaint or a dispute, but for facts that have not already been the subject of an investigation, as would be the case of Kitchen.
The Police will monitor the audios in the press
Regarding the probative value of the audios, García Castellón recalls that he has already pronounced on other occasions "respect for the circumstantial insufficiency that in the criminal process supposes supporting contrast on the basis of chopped recordings, decontextualized and of unknown origin." "Furthermore, the possible meetings between Cospedal and Villarejo have already been assessed and not constituted, per se, any criminal offence," he adds.
However, he decides to initiate a piece to analyze "the publications of information related" to the Villarejo case because he understands that "they demand, from the outset, a compilation and analysis task, in order to determine if the publications that have been appearing correspond with material seized and analyzed or if it is new unknown data”, in which case, “it would be convenient to determine the relevance in the procedure”.
piece number 34 of the macro-cause and in it It will be, the Internal Affairs Unit will have to "report on the publications that have appeared in the media and other channels of public dissemination of data related to this procedure, and must, where appropriate, proceed a required this information from the corresponding medium for their union”.
Anti-corruption asked to charge Cospedal again
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office had requested the initiation of a new piece within the macro-cause investigating Commissioner Villarejo, as this newspaper advanced. It would be a "mirror" or "bis" version that could host those new audios that have been published in the newly created digital Fuentes Informadas and whose filtration attributes the Internal Affairs Unit directly to the commissioner. The reason remains firm, that the Kitchen instruction is finalized and the judge's decision to prosecute the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior and the Police of the time remains firm.
What underlies is the discrepancy that the taxes and the judge have maintained throughout the investigation. For the instructor, and in a decision endorsed by the Criminal Chamber, Kitchen is limited to the maneuvers orchestrated by the department led by Jorge Fernández Díaz and carried out by the Deputy Directorate of Operations under the command of Eugenio Pino Par, using the driver de Bárcenas as a confidant, steal documentation from the treasurer that could compromise the Popular Party. The term, from 2013 to 2015.
The prosecutors, on the other hand, have been pointing to maneuvers in general to boycott the investigation of the Gürtel case, so they could have been born in the Popular Party, not in the Interior, and long before the already famous driver of the ex-treasurer entered the equation, Serge Rios. Hence a relevance that they appreciate in the audios between Cospedal and the commissioner, such as the tape in which she speaks of "stopping" the "little notebook" of Bárcenas, in reference to her accounting entries, but not only. Also in the conversations that Villarejo had with Martínez and that would point to the fact that both were accountable outside the ministry.
In fact, his 72-page report dedicates a section to analyzing the "knowledge and monitoring" of the actions around the former treasurer that both Cospedal and the then Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, could have. There was no evidence of him beyond the references that Martínez and Villarejo made in different conversations, but she directly affirmed that "he lacked the truth" when in court he said that he knew nothing about the maneuvers, according to information provided to ABC in legal sources. They asked to open that separate line and take a statement from both the former popular leader and Martínez.
“The request that has now been made (…) is legitimate but was already ruled out in its day by this instructor, not because it was intended to close the procedure but because it was noted that there were no indications to support the crimes that were intended to be investigated and consequently , the proceedings that were requested were irrelevant in terms of connection with the object of the case, since they clearly overwhelmed it, ”explained García Castellón's order.
The judge also sends a message to the parties. The indictment was built more than a year ago and they have not yet filed their indictments. The ten days to do it. From there, Kitchen will go to the bench.
