The judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón has refused, in an interlocutory hearing made public this week, to call as a witness María Dolores de Cospedal, former general secretary of the PP and ex-Minister of Defense, in one of the multiple cases opened against ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo. Almost any possibility of Cospedal explaining his activities with the controversial commissioner before the court is thus closed.
They were partners while she led Castilla-La Mancha, while she was the general secretary of the PP and while she was a minister. María Dolores de Cospedal and José Manuel Villarejo, their police plumber. Between the two of them, Ignacio López del Hierro, her partner, powerful businessman and old friend of his, acts as the apex.
The diaries of the curator, with the compulsive recordings of all his appointments, allow us to reconstruct the extent of the link with Cospedal. From 2009 until her arrest in late 2017, Villarejo recorded at least 261 contacts with her or her inner circle. The majority, 204, are with López del Hierro, whom he identifies as ILH. There are 28 direct contacts with Cospedal (MD, MDC or Cospe) and another 29 contacts with his chief of staff, José Luis Ortiz (JL).
Villarejo operated as if it were his antenna to the police. He informed her about corruption investigations, gave her data on political rivals, warned her in time of news relevant to her interests and, when he could, pressured journalists so that certain information did not come to light. Sometimes he would offer information, and at other times the couple would run errands for him.
The gateway to the popular leader was López del Hierro, whom Villarejo had known since he was governor of Toledo in the late seventies. She even noted the day (January 26, 2009) in which he explained to her that "his relative" was Cospedal, brand new general secretary of the PP.
With the outbreak of the Gürtel case, the great PP corruption plot, contacts between the two old friends intensified. When the first arrests were made on February 6, ordered by judge Baltasar Garzón, Cospedal already knew: the day before, Villarejo had informed his partner. “ ILH: Subtle touch of the situation. It is very thin. He talks to his relative", he points out.
This is the framework that consolidates the relationship between Villarejo and Cospedal. Their first date is July 21, 2009. A secret meeting at the headquarters of the PP, organized by López del Hierro. The meeting lasted an hour and a half and revolved around the Gürtel case. "Would you be available to do some occasional work?" says López del Hierro in a recording leaked years later. "I have no problem. At least you'll pay my expenses sometime," he replies. In September, the businessman instructs him to investigate Javier Arenas, who rivals Cospedal, and the brother of the socialist Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Minister of the Interior.
Cospedal expands its relationship in Castilla-La Mancha. At that time, he aspired to wrest the community from the socialist José María Barreda. Cast Mancha commissioned him, for example, to find out the identity of two detectives who, as Cospedal publicly denounced, were spying on local PP leaders on the orders of the socialists. Villarejo's diaries suggest he placed tracking beacons on them.
It's not just Cospedal that benefits. Because of the imminence of the 2011 generals, and because he was number two in the favorite party, Villarejo organizes a three-way meeting, with a close ally of his: José Luis Olivera, head of the economic and fiscal crime unit. Villarejo wanted to position his like-minded people against the changes that were coming. Two years earlier, Villarejo had already spoken to him about Olivera as "our man", who defended the PP "every time there was a tough issue".
In November, Rajoy obtains an absolute majority and Villarejo's agenda is filled with intrigue. Who will go where, who will be promoted or removed. A key episode takes place, which serves to measure the temperature of the relationship: Eugenio Pino, new deputy operational director (DAO), on March 27, 2012, summons Villarejo - then a brigade chief attached to the directorate - and with "harsh treatment and protocol", he notes, announcing a transfer. Villarejo immediately turns to ILH, who promises him that Cospedal will intercede. A day later, everything is fixed. "Pin [Pino]: He had called MD (...) At night 22.30 he called to CANCEL TRANSFER", writes Villarejo.
Operation Catalonia
If in the first phase the contacts were almost exclusively with López del Hierro, the Catalan crisis and the PP B box scandal brought Villarejo and Cospedal to a more direct and frequent relationship. On October 10, 2012, after a massive Diada, Villarejo received Pino's order from CiU drapes and to leak them to the press. Two weeks later the commissioner meets with Cospedal, who as secretary of the PP wants to have control over what happens in Catalonia. She organizes him an appointment with Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, leader of the Catalan PP, who in turn will put him in touch with Victoria Álvarez, ex-partner of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola. His complaint, along with that of businessman Javier de la Rosa, are the mainstays of the operation. In the November elections, after the publication of various news about alleged cases of convergent corruption, Artur Mas loses 12 seats.
The notes suggest that Cospedal was informed of the maneuvers and that it validated some payments. On the day that De la Rosa testifies before the judge in Madrid, Villarejo notes: “Cospe: maximum support in everything. JL Orti [his chief of staff] sends me 100 and promises me 50 more on Monday”. Then he writes about De la Rosa: "Delivery 150 to the AVE".
As a good plumber, Villarejo can plug all kinds of holes: one of his frequent contacts is the lawyer Javier Iglesias, who defends two defendants in the Gürtel plot, the ex-treasurer of the PP Álvaro Lapuerta and the businessman Alfonso García Pozuelo. They maneuver to limit the damage to the PP. The picture is complicated because the papers of former treasurer Luis Bárcenas come to light with irregular payments to high party officials. Villarejo knows through Iglesias that Rajoy and Cospedal are on the list.
The general secretary of the PP is irritated that the scandal of her party's box B covers up the successes of the operations in Catalonia, and she asks Villarejo to do what is possible to stop "the issue of the notebook" the document in which those payments are recorded: "That they have removed it now seemed to me a meanness of a thousand devils, among other things because they have left without effect the thing about the Catalans", she says in a recording between the two. It's January 2013.
The operation to stop the fire was orchestrated around Villarejo. From there, the driver of Bárcenas, Sergio Ríos, was caught, who collected funds reserved for stealing compromising documents for the PP. A key piece to convince Ríos was a friend of his, Andrés Gómez Gordo, Chief Inspector of the Police who was most trusted by Cospedal. In Villarejo's diary, Gómez Gordo is "Andy Cospe". About 40 contacts are registered with him.
In the midst of the scandal, López del Hierro made an assignment to Villarejo. " ILH: Personalize us in the Pocero theme. Control mayor Toledo", pointed out the commissioner. He was referring to a case of urban corruption in Seseña, with which the PP tried to link the socialist Emiliano García-Page, mayor of Toledo and today president of Castile-La Mancha.
In February 2014, half a year after the annotation, an association created by Villarejo, Transparency and Justice, became involved in the cause.
Villarejo was removed from the Catalonia operation in 2014, and there began a certain cooling off with Cospedal. "Yesterday they had a meeting at the ministry of people of GC and CNI to talk about Catalonia. Marcel will be in charge of everything", he said on April 9. Marcel is Marcelino Martín Blas, head of internal affairs, who will uncover Villarejo's corrupt businesses and become his scourge.
The pro-independence harassment operation had an unwanted effect on the marriage, because López del Hierro was on the board of a company (Ibadesa Cat SL) with the brother of the converging councilor Felip Puig. Jordi Pujol Ferrusola testified in court that he did an operation with this company in Gabon. An uncomfortable connection for the general secretary of the PP. López del Hierro "is very worried that his name appears in El Mundo related to Pujol", noted Villarejo. It is not clear what maneuvers the commissioner did, but Cospedal was satisfied: "She said she was very happy with the arrangements I made to prevent her husband's affair with the Pujols from coming out," she points out.
Only five days after that favor Cospedal opened the doors to Genoa. He asks for "an analysis of Ezquerra [sic]" in reference to ERC. And, above all, "he promises to pay the debt of 100", according to the commissioner's notes. It is the last reference on this subject, so it must be assumed that Villarejo received what he claimed.
Villarejo exploited Cospedal's rivalry with Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría. The animosity had reached a zenith in 2012, when Rajoy forced López del Hierro to resign as a director of Red Eléctrica, under pressure from senior party officials led by the vice-president.
Villarejo ended the confrontation in the meeting with Cospedal in March 2013. He presented four reports. He warns his ally of an alleged plan by the National Intelligence Center (CNI), which organically depends on Sáenz de Santamaría, "to discredit MD" and point to her "as being in charge of the political police", and says that her husband's companies are in the spotlight.
The invectives against the vice-president are growing in parallel with the outbreak of the war of commissioners in the National Police, which pits Villarejo against Martín Blas; the second has the support of the head of the CNI, General Félix Sanz Roldán, the other great enemy of Villarejo. In March 2015, El País revealed the commissioner's millionaire business network. In April he is seen with López del Hierro. They talk about the "fight for control of the PP". And he writes: "Look at Soraya's husband". It is not clear whether it is a request or a proposal from him.
Villarejo retires in August 2016 but the siege tightens, with the Anticorruption Prosecutor investigating his businesses. In February, he makes two calls to López del Hierro, the recordings of which have gone viral. Cornered, he asks for help; the tone is threatening. The underlying message is that she has a lot of sensitive information for Cospedal and if he goes down, she'll go after him.
In May, she meets with the now Minister of Defense, who asks her to talk only to her from now on and to avoid her husband "for your protection and his". Villarejo portrays the investigation against him as a plot by Sanz Roldán and Saénz de Santamaría, and Cospedal promises him that he will intercede for him before the Prosecutor's Office.
They meet one last time, on September 12, at the ministry: "Cospe is very receptive", he notes. In the leaked recording, Villarejo is heard pleading for help to stop a Sepblac (anti-money laundering unit) investigation into his companies and accounts abroad, while claiming that an account in Panama was set up by to pay Javier de la Rosa to testify against the Pujols. "Do you remember?" he says.
Villarejo was arrested in November 2017. A year later, several recordings that revealed the extent of the relationship with the police dynamited Cospedal's political career.
In the courts she has been more fortunate so far. She was accused for two months with her husband for the Kitchen case, but the judge acquitted them both because their meetings with the commissioner were of a "social" nature, she argued. The resources of Anticorruption did not help nor their attempts to impute her again as recordings appeared.
María Dolores de Cospedal was supposed to be cited in the congressional commission investigating police maneuvers, but the call for early elections has left that up in the air. If the PP wins the future of the commission is very dark. Neither she, nor López del Hierro, nor Ortiz, nor Gómez Gordo wanted to offer their version.
