Why Jorge Fernández Díaz tries to save himself from the Kitchen case thanks to the letter K?

San Fernando de Henares“I will have it once the [ministers’] council is over, that’s how we agreed”. This is the message of discord that Jorge Fernández Díaz clings to in his attempt to achieve acquittal in the Kitchen case trial, which has entered its final stretch at the National High Court after almost four months. Where does it come from? It is an SMS that, on August 2, 2013, the then Minister of the Interior allegedly sent to his number two, Francisco Martínez, who was Secretary of State for Security. It is one of the pieces of evidence that led to Fernández Díaz's indictment – in September 2020 – and has brought him to the dock. The Public Prosecutor's Office is asking for fifteen years in prison. However, from day one, he has denied its authenticity. “We maintain the thesis that these messages never existed. If they existed, they were neither sent nor forwarded by him,” his lawyer, Jesús Mandri, argued during the final report. He considers that they underwent “clear manipulation” and an “ad hoc creation” and that it is “implausible” to claim that the messages came from the former minister. On the contrary, sources from the prosecution support them, arguing that it makes no sense for Francisco Martínez to put in writing something that incriminated him.

One of the main reasons alleged by Jorge Fernández Díaz's defense is that he does not use the letter K when he writes. In fact, it is not a new argument: he used it in November 2020, when the two protagonists faced each other in a confrontation before Judge Manuel García-Castellón. “Everyone is who they are and I don't write with a K. Maybe my children do, but I don't,” he said six years ago. “I know very well how you write, I’ve been stuck to you for five years,” Francisco Martínez replied. There is another message, from October 2013, in which Fernández Díaz tells Martínez that the operation was carried out with “success” and that “everything was dumped,” a statement that coincides chronologically with the copy made of two devices belonging to Luis Bárcenas at the VIPS on Velázquez Street in Madrid.

The SMS messages were notarized before two notaries, during two visits that took place in parallel to the statements of Enrique García Castaño which incriminated him. However, Francisco Martínez did not mention them when he testified: “It is very relevant. If it has not been ratified, the probative value is blurred and completely diluted,” exclaimed Jesús Mandri. The lawyer for the former number two of the ministry, Pedro Colina, also made no allusion to the SMS messages during his intervention.

One of the notaries was Alberto Vela, who explained that he limited himself to looking at the mobile phone, checking the contact from which the messages came and copying them, but that he could not "unequivocally accredit" that they came from Jorge Fernández Díaz because this would require expert knowledge: "I can only record what I see and perceive with my senses." For his part, the former minister's expert replied that there were "high indications" that "something is not right" and that it was "impossible" to accredit that the SMS came from him.

Villarejo's diaries and audio recordings

Jesús Mandri has also wanted to discredit the annotations that appear in Villarejo's diary that mention Jorge Fernández Díaz. He recalled that María Dolores de Cospedal was exonerated because the judge considered that appearing in the retired commissioner's annotations was not a sufficiently weighty reason and stressed that there is no “direct contact” between Villarejo and Fernández Díaz: “No meeting, no recording, and no encounter.” For his part, Pedro Colina has wanted to dismantle the recordings that point to Francisco Martínez: “They are not natural, the one who fundamentally speaks is Villarejo, who is guiding the conversation where he wants at all times.”

A “lawful and legal intelligence operation”

The other major argument of the defense is that the operation orchestrated around Luis Bárcenas had the objective of finding his money and not stealing information about the PP. “There was a real, lawful and legal police intelligence operation to search for Bárcenas' money and assets,” summarized Francisco Martínez's lawyer, who even called it a “state operation” with a “legitimate national interest” to uncover the economic dealings of the former PP treasurer. “When it is discovered that Bárcenas has accounts in Switzerland, it is an apotheosis and a hecatomb,” he added. Despite this, he admitted that “it did not yield tangible results.” Likewise, he argued that the witnesses have discredited the prosecution's thesis: “No one has confirmed what they believe happened.”

Finally, Pedro Colina doubted that Bárcenas had the documentation he claims to have had: “He did not have a single piece of evidence against the Popular Party, he never has. He has had ample opportunities to provide them,” he alleged. And he cast a shadow of doubt that there was an “implicit pact” between him and the Prosecutor's Office for him to say he had evidence to prevent the Gürtel case from falling into a black hole. It was a “very serious imputation” that the president of the court, Teresa Palacios, reproached him for.