Direct allusions to the fact that Mariano Rajoy, when he was president of the PP and the Government, knew about the Catalonia operation and the police setup to cover up party corruption, the Kitchen case, are abundant in the diaries and recordings of ex-police officer José Manuel Villarejo. Among them, the own words of two government ministers. It is about at least 31 references.
They were two of the main occupations of the so-called "patriotic police", the group of agents and high command of the Ministry of the Interior who were dedicated to solving the political problems of the PP, whether it was hindering investigations for corruption or discrediting the Catalan independence movement with assemblies. and false evidence.
The Catalonia operation began on September 12, 2012, after the massive demonstration of the Diada the day before, in a meeting at the Ministry of the Interior chaired by its head, Jorge Fernández Díaz, according to what one of the officials explained to La Vanguardia and Cronicalibre.com the people that is here. Fernández himself, in a recording from October 2014 (revealed by the Público newspaper in 2016), tells the then director of the Antifrau Office of Catalonia, Daniel de Alfonso, that the president "is satisfied" with investigating and removing light shady affairs of pro-independence politicians.
What do the known Villarejo agendas and audios say? Rajoy, "Raj" or "Asturian" are the ways in which the ex-commissioner mentions in the 2,304 pages that occupy his diaries from 2007 to 2017 his subsequent boss, the president of the government. Villarejo refers to meetings held with Rajoy by third parties, of which someone informs him, or writes down information about him or about his relatives. "Rajoy and Cospe, everything is ok," Villarejo points out, told by lawyer Javier Iglesias, one of the two people who, according to the former commissioner, have direct and frequent contact with both him and Rajoy. Iglesias was a lawyer for two defendants in the Gürtel case and negotiated with the leadership of the PP.
The other person is Francisco Martínez, Secretary of State for Security between 2013 and 2016, who on June 13, 2014 spoke with Villarejo, among other things, about “Barna data”, “ADN Artur” and “Astur, CNI issue”. La Vanguardia contacted Martínez to find out what his relationship with the president was in those years, but he declined to intervene in this report.
There are references to a single direct contact between Rajoy and Villarejo, although its veracity is highly doubtful. It would have happened at the headquarters of the Popular Party and Villarejo himself is the only testimony. One of the recordings of him while he talks with Francisco Martínez on March 14, 2014. In it, the ex-commissioner recounts a supposed visit to the PP headquarters on Génova street, that same week:
-Villarejo: They passed me through the back (...) I went with 'El Capillas' [Javier Iglesias], in the room where he always receives me... he, there in the kind of glass bubble, in that little room.
-Francisco Martínez: Next to his office.
-Villarejo: Right next door. The prez comes, such and such, "How are you, how are you?" "Look, just to say hello, such and such, I don't know how much"... "Know that my friend Javier Iglesias enjoys all the sympathy in the world, among other things, so let's get to work."
It is not clear if the meeting between Rajoy and Villarejo really happened or he was lying to the Secretary of State to make believe that he had a higher endorsement.
There is no note on his agenda about the supposed meeting, although Villarejo points next to the name of Javier Iglesias: "Yesterday he saw Raj and Cospe and wants to comment."
In 2012, Villarejo had already brandished Rajoy's supposed support before Martínez. The recording is from November 29, four days after the Catalan elections. The commissioner is very angry with the Minister of the Interior because they have given him orders to "put the Catalonia operation in the fridge for three months", while he wants to go ahead with the prosecution of the complaints against CiU and specifically the Pujol family of Javier de la Rosa and Victoria Alvarez. The meeting with Martínez is very tense. Villarejo threatens to bring to light the evidence that "shows that you were all involved in this move" and says he has dirty laundry on Fernández Díaz. He also assures Martínez that he has spoken with a supposed link with the Prime Minister and that Rajoy does not want to freeze the operation. “[The link] tells me: This is not so. Those are not the instructions I have from the president, I just spoke with him. The instructions are: go ahead with your plan, neither CNI nor dicks. You use this management. We trust you to death, you have never failed us and if someone says otherwise or is not satisfied with this, they should talk to the president, "says Villarejo.
In another recording between Villarejo and Martínez that has come to light, on August 22, 2014, the policeman suggested to the Secretary of State that from then on only he should inform Mariano Rajoy of sewerage issues, whom he calls "the Barbas”: “I think that to avoid increasingly tensions you should be the only channel of communication. It is very ugly that the information from the party, from the Ministry, really reaches Barbas. That is my concept, I think that many things have been misunderstood by this double path and she [in allusion to María Dolores de Cospedal] takes advantage of this and the other one too and on top of that, in the end they do not pay… they are the milk ”.
Villarejo is angry because he has allegedly advanced money from his pocket for certain jobs related to the operation and he is demanding it from the PP general secretary.
In another conversation, in this case with his (theoretical) ally María Dolores de Cospedal, at that time Minister of Defense as well as number two in the party, on May 5, 2017, Villarejo asked her for protection against the harassment that according to him he is suffering by the National Intelligence Center (CNI), which organically depends on Vice President Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, Cospedal's political rival. Villarejo, who will be arrested in November, is already being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and in that conversation Cospedal promises him that he is taking steps to solve his problems. He gives her to understand that the president is aware of everything, given the measures that he asks for the police:
-Cospedal: The best thing for your protection and for him, I think it's almost better that you talk to me than with Ignacio [López del Hierro, Cospedal's husband].
-José Manuel Villarejo: I did it so as not to burn you.
-MDC: I already smoke a cigar”.
-JMV: Yes, I remember when we were in public when we were in full swing and I was delighted. If what I don't want is to bother you. And I, María Dolores, only trust you, as you have seen.
-MDC: I have told the president [Mariano Rajoy] that if I stay with this man [Villarejo], if I go to see him, the CNI shouldn't bother me. Nor him. you know...
Contacts between Villarejo and Iglesias are frequent as of 2012. Iglesias, alias El Largo or El Capillas, was a lawyer for two defendants in Gürtel, who judged the illegal financing of the party and parallel accounting. Iglesias was in permanent contact with the leadership of the PP, negotiating on behalf of his clients, and reported progress to Villarejo. The lawyer is in all sauces. The Catalonia operation, the Kitchen case – in which the police plotted the theft of compromising documentation for the PP from its ex-treasurer Luis Bárcenas – or the case of Banca Privada d'Andorra, which the "patriotic police" extorted so that give him details of alleged bank accounts in Andorra of Artur Mas, Oriol Junqueras and Jordi Pujol. Iglesias is also a lawyer for Ramon and Higini Cierco, owners of BPA and its subsidiary, Banco Madrid.
On October 10, 2014, a few weeks after the 9-N consultation, Villarejo records a conversation with Iglesias, who “called him to see how Marcelino's issues were going [Marcelino Martín-Blas, head of Internal Affairs]. I told him about LB-mujer [Luis Bárcenas and his wife] and PJ [perhaps Pedro J. Ramírez, already a former director of El Mundo]. Also themes Barna. He was left to pass on to Raj.”
This note suggests that Iglesias informs Rajoy of all these matters, on behalf of the controversial ex-commissioner. Iglesias explained to La Vanguardia that Rajoy “was president of the Popular Party. This party was a procedural party in the Gürtel case. I was a lawyer in Gürtel and therefore I cannot speak of anything that affects professional secrecy”.
From the notes of the former commissioner it is also deduced that Martínez skips the chain of command and goes without his minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, to see the president. In a note dated July 27, 2015, Iglesias gives him “several positive messages, he says that last Thursday he was with Chisco seeing Rajoy. He waits for him to start acting. Chisco spoke highly of me." But Martínez denied to this newspaper that this supposed meeting between Rajoy, Iglesias and him had taken place.
Although Fernández Díaz also appears as part of the plot. On July 6, 2013, for example, Villarejo notes: "Iglesias: says that the minister spoke with Raj and everything is OK"; in his notes, the “minister” is always Fernández Díaz.
On March 24, 2019, with the PP government dismissed due to Pedro Sánchez's motion of censure, Martínez writes a direct WhatsApp to Rajoy, which appears in the summary of the Kitchen case and to which this newspaper had access, in which he implores their help to appear on an electoral list. Possibly, to achieve the capacity granted by the status of deputy or senator before a judicial horizon that looks stormy.
Martínez writes: “Dear President: good afternoon, I am Paco Martínez, I hope you are very well. Forgive me for the audacity to write to you, I just wanted to tell you that, as things are today, it seems that I will not be on any list. I'm really sorry to bother you but in the last few months, for reasons you know, I've gone from being someone valuable to the party to being put aside as some kind of pest. I think it's not fair and I don't deserve it. Both your government and the Party have only had loyalty and commitment from me, in very difficult times. I don't think I deserve to be left stranded, in these conditions. No one has called me and I only ask that the Party help me at this time, with whatever formula (if it can't be Congress, let it be the Senate, Madrid Assembly, etc). I think you know that I have only been loyal and worked at enormous personal cost. I am very aware that it is not your decision, but I wanted to share it with you and ask for your help, to the best of your ability and with my thanks in advance.
Martínez did not manage to go on any list.
On February 24, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office announced that it was asking for him, as well as for Fernández Díaz and former commissioner Eugenio Pino, up to 15 years in prison for their involvement in the Kitchen operation.
