Villarejo assures that Rajoy's government had "great interest" in the Pujols

MadridEight days after he began testifying in the Kitchen case trial, José Manuel Villarejo has spoken again. Last week he spent three hours answering the Public Prosecutor's questions, and now he has spent two hours answering his lawyer. At the entrance, journalists asked Villarejo about his contacts with Leire Díez, given that in the investigation file on the so-called plumber of the PSOE, her name appears more than once. And he showed himself to be open to testifying before the judge: "With great pleasure, when Pedraz asks me, I will answer all of that. Because I have to preserve the independence and the right of defense of my lawyer," he stated. At one point during his testimony inside the courtroom, José Manuel Villarejo alluded to separatism and María Dolores de Cospedal. First, he said that the Spanish government presided over by Mariano Rajoy "was very interested in knowing everything that affected the separatist line" and "demonstrating the illegality of the Pujol accusations." He explained that one of the sources was the businessman Javier de la Rosa, who was the husband of the then number two of the PP and received an "important amount" of money. The commissioner advanced it, but they never returned it to him: "I told her, as a person close to the president, that I had advanced some money with the confidence that they would immediately return it to me, but they kept delaying it and never paid me back."

Likewise, José Manuel Villarejo pointed out that Cospedal had "concern" about Luis Bárcenas's notes relating to M. Rajoy. He also denied wanting to torpedo the judicial investigation into the PP's "caja B" (slush fund). He stated that "never in my life" did he hide information from Justice: "I was independent and I did not aspire to be promoted in anything," he justified. And he boasted that, even though the color of the party in power in Moncloa changed, he continued to act: "A sign that they saw I had no political ties or dependence on any party."

At all times, Villarejo's defense line has not been new: he has said and repeated that the investigation he was conducting into Luis Bárcenas had to do with the money that the former PP treasurer allegedly had abroad. With this objective, his lawyer has been exhibiting various intelligence notes to corroborate it: "They were pieces of information that I understood could be valid. My function was not to verify if it was correct or not, I tried to establish leads that could be of interest," explained the retired commissioner. "Everything was very ethereal, I noted down the information in my notes in case any operational team could verify the data, I limited myself to presenting them if I considered the source to be reasonably credible," he added. Regarding Luis Bárcenas' data, he said that he "never" had the "conviction" as to whether they were true or not: "I could never verify their existence, they were mere speculations".

Their relationship with the Leire case

recordings by Javier Pérez Dolset that were incorporated into the caserecordings by Javier Pérez Dolset that were incorporated into the case. "There is a need for the left and the right to accuse me of anything. These supposed sewers already existed since 2018", he added. And he quoted Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "«It is madness to try to remain sane when everyone has gone mad». In other words, do I agree with the supposed sewers so that they accuse me of more things and so that they open more cases against me? Please, let's be serious".

For now, who will have to testify as a witness an agreement in return that would provide evidence of the State's sewers.

would have offered José Manuel Villarejo" an agreement in exchange for providing evidence of the State's sewers.

Marcelino Martín Blas says he knew nothing about it

The next accused to testify was Marcelino Martín Blas, who was head of the Internal Affairs Unit. He is the one who assured Congress that Operation Catalonia was documented. Regarding the Kitchen case, when questioned by the prosecutor, he stated that he was unaware of the espionage against Luis Bárcenas until Judge Manuel García-Castellón charged him: "I didn't know anything about it until 2019 or 2020, I had no idea until my indictment was published." He said he was so "surprised" that he even had to go with his lawyer to corroborate it. He also denied having been part of the patriotic police.