Soraya Saénz de Santamaría remembers nothing related to the Kitchen
The son of Bárcenas assures that in 2013 his father told him that he had recorded a compromising conversation with Rajoy
MadridNeither Mariano Rajoy nor María Dolores de Cospedal and now not Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría either, remember anything about Operation Kitchen. This Monday it was the turn of the former Spanish vice president, who testified as a witness in the National Court, exhibiting memory problems similar to those of the former PP president. "I don't remember" was the phrase she repeated most in an interrogation that lasted barely a quarter of an hour. Sáenz de Santamaría, who was also spokesperson for Rajoy's government between 2011 and 2016, stated that she "had no knowledge whatsoever of this operation during her time in government".
Everything she has learned about the espionage of Luis Bárcenas, former PP treasurer, has been through the press, she assured. However, she also did not recall the first publications that came out about this matter, in 2015. "I suppose I read them, but I don't remember." Sáenz de Santamaría did not live up to the nickname "all-powerful" that was attributed to her when she was in government and assured that she "had no information" related to investigations or the use of secret funds in the Ministry of the Interior because "it was not her responsibility". "I was Minister of the Presidency, not Interior," she argued. She also denied having investigated it or that Rajoy had shown interest in the matter with her or that the two main defendants —the former Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, and his former number two, Francisco Martínez— had passed her any information.
Unlike Cospedal, the former PP secretary general from 2008 to 2018, Sáenz de Santamaría has never been under investigation. "Publicly, there was talk of a tense situation between you and Cospedal. Was it true?", the lawyer for the popular accusation, Gloria de Pascual, representing the PSOE, asked her, with the aim of finding out if this tension was caused by disagreements in managing the PP's corruption scandals. "I never had any strategy of any kind regarding the Gürtel", replied Sáenz de Santamaría, who said she did not know what Cospedal had, "if she had one". She also said she did not know that the former PP secretary general met with former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, who is also on trial.
In fact, Sáenz de Santamaría has distanced herself from Villarejo's accusations, who in statements to the media at the start of the trial pointed to her and the National Intelligence Center, which at that time was attached to the Ministry of the Presidency. "Let her explain what the CNI was doing in this operation," he challenged her. The former vice president has denied having had knowledge that the CNI participated in the surveillance of Bárcenas and has also said she has "no record" that the intelligence services initiated any investigation against Villarejo or had "animosity" towards him.
The alleged audio of Rajoy
The first testimony of the day was that of Guillermo Bárcenas, son of the former PP treasurer, who confirmed his father's version that implicates Rajoy when he explained that in 2013, about a month before his father went to prison, he told him that he had recorded a conversation with Rajoy about the PP's slush fund in the presence of Javier Arenas. However, Guillermo Bárcenas said he never heard it. Arenas himself testified shortly after and said he had no knowledge that any of the conversations he had with the former treasurer were recorded or that the party tried to recover any compromising audio.
This member of Rajoy's PP leadership denied having "any unease" about it and dissociated himself by emphasizing that he was in charge of regional and local affairs. Arenas is still an active politician and currently serves as a senator with a position in the leadership of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP —as general secretary of the PP parliamentary group in the Senate. Just as Rajoy did, Arenas has lent a hand to the two main defendants, assuring that they are "great professionals of the public administration at the service of the Spanish people".