The former police chief helps the PP in the Kitchen case: he has "no record" of illegal espionage against Bárcenas
Ignacio Cosidó, who was also a PP senator, assures that he did not feel references to the Kitchen case
MadridThe trial of the Kitchen case, which puts the leadership of Mariano Rajoy's Ministry of the Interior on trial, begins to question political figures from the Popular Party. After the statements of six investigated individuals, it was the turn of Ignacio Cosidó, who was director general of the Spanish police from 2012 to 2016. In a statement that lasted more than an hour and provided few details and little new information, he disassociated himself from the espionage of Luis Bárcenas and framed the investigation into the former PP treasurer within the Gürtel case, concerning the illegal financing of the PP. "I always understood that it was being carried out by the UDEF," he stated when questioned by the prosecutor. The UDEF is the Central Unit for Economic and Fiscal Crime. "I knew that the UDEF existed, but I did not know that other units were involved," he added later. The intervention of the Operational Deputy Directorate (DAO) and the Central Unit for Operational Support (UCAO) is under suspicion in the trial.
"Did you hear about operations with informants that were called Kitchen or cook on any occasion?, the PSOE lawyer, Gloria de Pascual, asked him. "I don't remember. I perfectly remember the Gürtel investigation, but as a cook or cook or Kitchen, I have no record of having heard it," replied Ignacio Cosidó, who was also the PP spokesperson in the Senate and was the one who boasted of controlling the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court "through the back door". He also did not know if Bárcenas's driver, Sergio Ríos, who is also on trial, was a informant: "It was classified information and I had no knowledge that there was an individual acting within the framework of this operation".
During the statement, the judge presiding over the trial, Teresa Palacios, has reprimanded the lawyers for the PSOE and Podemos, who are acting as popular accusers, on more than one occasion. "You were a leader of the PP. Do you remember if Bárcenas's prison situation was a cause for concern or worry?", Gorka Vellé, lawyer for the purple party, asked. "A party's concern about a person's precautionary measures is not part of the facts," the magistrate snapped at him. She also reprimanded the PSOE lawyer at different moments of her questioning. "I don't think we can extract much from a question about whether a person was angry," she said. "Meeting by the ministry, I don't see it as incriminating," she replied at another moment.
The contradictions with Villarejo
Ignacio Cosidó has also spoken about the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, who is on trial. He said he did not have a "relationship of trust" with him and explained that he saw him once in the building of the Spanish National Police Directorate: "It was a protocol greeting without me giving him any instructions, nor him giving me information." But Villarejo's lawyer, Antonio García Cabrera, has cast doubt on this.
– A chance encounter in your office alone?
– We left the door open and it was really brief.
Furthermore, five years ago, in the Congress's investigation committee, Villarejo fully implicated Cosidó in the operation and assured that he was aware of it. He recounted that one day he met him and told him that they had a mission for him and that Eugenio Pino –who was the deputy operational director of the police– would give him more details: "They tell me I have to abandon two operations I had, one in Saudi Arabia and another in Lebanon, which I understood to be much more important." He also stressed that Cosidó had made it clear to him that Operation Kitchen was a "very important matter in which the Spanish Prime Minister himself has an interest."
The surveillance of Bárcenas' wife
For her part, Marta Giménez-Cassina, lawyer for the Bárcenas family, asked Ignacio Cosidó about the surveillance of the wife of the former PP treasurer, Rosalía Iglesias. The witness maintained that the surveillance should have been "always with the responsibility of the UDEF" and "under the supervision" of the investigating judge and said that it is "reasonable" that Rosalía Iglesias, in case of having had a protection order, would have known about it. Finally, she acknowledged that it is not "usual" for different units to meet at the same time and place without them knowing about it because there is an information system to "prevent overlap".