The Pujols and Sanchez's father-in-law's saunas: the audios that connect the sewers of the PP and PSOE

MadridThere is a name linked to the PSOE that has appeared in the first two sessions of the Kitchen case trial, which implicates the leadership of the PP's Ministry of the Interior: Javier Pérez Dolset. He is a businessman and collaborator of Leire Díez, the former socialist militant nicknamed the plumber of the PSOE, and considers himself a victim of the state's dirty dealings. Months ago, he admitted to meeting with Santos Cerdán at Ferraz to hand over documents on irregular practices of Mariano Rajoy's government, and since last October he has been investigated for attempting to bribe two prosecutors. What is his connection to Kitchen? Four years ago, he provided the Spanish police's Internal Affairs Unit with a series of recordings by José Manuel Villarejo. And now, at the request of the retired commissioner, he will have to testify as a witness in the trial.

Specifically, he will have to provide explanations about three audios recorded in 2013 and 2014, which ARA has accessed, containing conversations between Villarejo and Francisco Martínez, the then second-in-command to Jorge Fernández Díaz. According to the Spanish police report, also consulted by this outlet, Javier Pérez Dolset explained that the files came from the Telegram channel of Alvise Pérez – who is now an MEP

and leader of S'ha Acabat la Festa – and from the media. The request for Javier Pérez Dolset to testify as a witness was made by Antonio García Cabrera, the retired commissioner's lawyer, in order to "assess the reliability" of the audios: "We want him to tell us where he got these documents from, his motivation, their custody, and their possible alteration," he justified.

What is in the audios?

The recordings are of interest to the Kitchen case because Villarejo and Martínez are heard discussing the role of Sergio Ríos, the driver for Luis Bárcenas' family, and Villarejo, for example, explained to Martínez that a lawyer had told him that the Pujols had "a lot of dough in various museums in Andorra" and that the businessman Javier de la Rosa had spoken to him about a "very important landfill issue" concerning the Pujols. And he put two names on the table. "The guy Martell almost always gets paid under the table, in cash and abroad," Villarejo told Martínez about Cristóbal Martell, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola's lawyer. And he also alluded to the tax advisor of the family of the former president of the Generalitat, Joan Anton Sànchez Carreté

: "He is a key man, I tried to see him when I was in Catalonia." Later, they spoke about the saunas managed by Sabiniano Gómez, Pedro Sánchez's father-in-law. "That would politically kill anyone. A man who goes around with the feminist flag and I don't know what... And it's full of Polish women," said Francisco Martínez.

Francisco Martínez tries (unsuccessfully) to cancel the audios

In the opening session of the trial, Pedro Colina, Francisco Martínez's lawyer, demanded that these three recordings be excluded from the trial: "They are of unknown origin, with zero and null traceability. We cannot authenticate their content, origin, or reliability," protested the lawyer. "They cannot be considered valid in any concept. [...] They must be declared illicit evidence and must be annulled," he insisted. However, the Prosecutor's Office was in favour of keeping them: "They are not null files as they have not been obtained by violating fundamental rights, but they will require a greater evidentiary effort." And the court – in the words of the president, Teresa Palacios – ruled out excluding them because "it does not appear that they were provided or found illegally or illicitly".