The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has appeared —at his own request— in the Congress of Deputies to point out that the Barracks Case —which investigates alleged irregularities in works and reforms in Civil Guard buildings— which is a matter, "one more", of corruption that affects the Popular Party. And this is, in his opinion, because during the stage of the popular Juan Ignacio Zoido at the helm of the Interior, the director of the Civil Guard, José Manuel Holgado, "shacked" the investigation in an "unpresentable" way, despite the fact that Internal Affairs proposed that their inquiries be forwarded to the Prosecutor's Office.
After that shelving, the investigation was resumed after an anonymous complaint that reached the Interior days before the motion of censure that led Pedro Sánchez to Moncloa. Thus, the minister has taken pains to portray the "dark years" of the Interior at the command of the Popular Party, summarizing them in three words: "authoritarianism, corruption and bungling."
Some words that have outraged the bench of the Popular group, from where they have reproached the minister for speaking as "a deputy of the PSOE" to "cover up" the cocaine and brothels of the Mediator case. "He has behaved like a hooligan with stripes", the spokesperson for the Popular Party Ana Vázquez has come to blurt out.
Marlaska, in his first speech —before the Commission session became a mixture of corruption cases that affect one and the other used in a quick way—, placed in 2016 when Internal Affairs learned of the awarding of contracts in barracks to businessman Ángel Ramón Tejera de León with a turnover of 2.11 million euros. The minister has indicated that this same businessman set up three companies in parallel that also obtained other contracts in commands of up to ten provinces for 2.07 million.
The head of the Interior has located the "serious anomalies" that, in his opinion, began to stain the investigation of the Cuarteles case in April 2017, when the deputy operational director of the Civil Guard, Lieutenant General Pablo Martín received the report of internal affairs to be placed in the hands of the Public Ministry. As the minister recalled, in that month of 2017 it was decided that Lieutenant Pedro Vázquez, who is accused in this case, would answer to Internal Affairs. Vázquez asked that the report not reach the hands of the Prosecutor's Office. This lieutenant, as reported by Marlaska, was promoted to lieutenant general in eight months: "It is the most meteoric career in the corps."
