The former Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, made a move against his own party yesterday after asking the National Court that the PP be considered a profit-making participant in the case investigating Operation Kitchen, a plot aimed at to steal sensitive documents from Luis Bárcenas, ex-treasurer of the political formation, while the latter was in prison for his involvement in the Gürtel case, in 2013.
The former minister and principal investigated in the case - for which he faces 15 years in prison - adheres in this way to the resources raised by the PSOE and by who was his number two in the Interior, Francisco Martínez.
As explained by the defense of Fernández Díaz, from the same factual account of the indictments "it follows that the origin and epicenter of the allegedly criminal events was espionage and the theft of information allegedly harmful to the interests of the Bárcenas family of the PP, always for its benefit and using reserved funds for such purposes".
For this reason, he understands that in the face of a possible conviction for the use of funds reserved to pay for a "parapolice" operation for the benefit of the PP and the then president of the Spanish government, Mariano Rajoy, the same party, which today is chaired by Alberto Núñez Feijóo , should assume part of the civil liability. According to his opinion, "it is obvious, consistent and necessary to include the PP as a profit-making participant".
This appeal has been incorporated into others against the interlocutory opening of the oral trial dictated by the Magistrate of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón, who has already terminated the investigation because he had enough evidence to sit in the dock Fernández Díaz; his Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, and the police leadership of the time, including ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, to order a "parapolice" device to steal compromising data from Bárcenas on box B of the PP that could affect Rajoy.
In this matter, the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office has clashed with Judge García-Castellón in several aspects, such as the latter's refusal to bring the then General Secretary of the PP, María Dolores de Cospedal, to trial.
After the interlocutory opening of the oral trial, he also appealed against the inclusion of the crime of kidnapping requested by the Bárcenas family, who considered that the story of the fake priest who entered the house of the ex-treasurer of the PP and he retained his wife and son was orchestrated by Interior within Operation Kitchen.
Fernández Díaz, the highest political leader accused in this procedure, already appealed against the interlocutory opening of the oral trial, in which the judge García-Castellón refused to include the PP as a subsidiary civil liability due to prescription and established this responsibility in the General Administration of the State in the event that those investigated were convicted. Then, the ex-minister asked to lower the bail that was imposed on him and now adheres to other appeals that requested the inclusion of the PP in the trial, in which there are nine other defendants.
