The top brass of the PP during the Mariano Rajoy era, including the then President of the Government, will have to appear as witnesses in the trial of Kitchen casewhich will judge the operation hatched in 2013 within the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police to spy on the former treasurer of the Popular Party, Luis Bárcenas, with the alleged aim of stealing documents that could harm his party. The fourth section has issued an order in which it admits the majority of testimonies from political leaders requested by the accusations, including those requested by the PSOE and Podemos, who appeared as a popular accusation. The list of accepted testimonies is made up mostly of police officers and leaders and leaders of the PP, including Rajoy, the former vice-president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the former general secretary of the PP Dolores de Cospedal and the former Minister of the Interior Juan Ignacio Zoido.
The judges have rejected the accusations’ request to summon several journalists to testify and they also do not accept the appearance of the current Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, or the first prosecutor of the Villarejo case, Ignacio Stampa, claimed by the defense of the former number two of that ministry, the accused Francisco Martínez.
The trial for Operation Kitchen will see, among others, former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz, for whom the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 15 years in prison. The holding of the oral hearing is awaiting the National Court finding a space, due to the “saturation of plenary sessions” that the court currently has, as the judges explain in their latest ruling. But the court wants the work to progress and to be able to prepare the evidence that will be presented at the trial.
The ruling issued now responds to the requests made by the defence and the prosecution in their respective briefs, in which PSOE and Podemos demanded that a dozen PP leaders and people linked to the party at the time when the events occurred be summoned to testify as witnesses. The judges have agreed to summon them all.
In addition to Rajoy, Saénz de Santamaría, Cospedal and Zoido, the list also includes the former Minister of the Presidency, Justice and the Interior of Madrid, Enrique López; the former Secretary of State for Security, José Antonio Nieto; the Secretary of the Interior, Ignacio Ulloa; the former Director General of the Police, Ignacio Cosidó; the former Chief of Staff of Cospedal during her time as President of Castilla-La Mancha (2011-2015) and as Secretary General of the PP (2008-2018), José Luis Ortiz Grande; the husband of the former leader of the Popular Party, Ignacio López del Hierro; the former Minister and former Deputy Secretary of the PP, Javier Arenas; and the former delegate for security of the party, Guillermo Barroso.
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
The operation against the former treasurer of the PP was activated after the publication of The Bárcenas Papers regarding the party’s secret funds and corruption surrounding Francisco Correa’s companies. For this reason, Judge García-Castellón has sent 11 people to the dock: among them Fernández Díaz, Francisco Martínez and Eugenio Pino, former deputy director of operations of the National Police.
#leaders #Rajoys #time #testify #witnesses #kitchen #case #trial
