The investigation of the National Court for the dirty war against Podemos during the Government of the Popular Party included this Tuesday the statement of two prominent members of the political brigade: its boss, the retired commissioner Eugenio Pino, and the chief inspector José Ángel Fuentes Gago . According to legal sources, the latter has assured Judge Santiago Pedraz that he does not recognize his voice in the recording of his meeting with a former minister of Hugo Chávez in New York in which he appears saying that he has traveled with a “mandate” from the then president. of the Government of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, to prevent Podemos from reaching the Government.
Fuentes Gago has declared himself under investigation and has responded only to his lawyer. The commander, now on leave from the Police, has said that he did not spy on any party or any member of political groups. And he also doesn’t know any colleague in the Corps who has done it.
Chief Inspector José Ángel Fuentes Gago, one of the members of the first line of the PP’s political brigade, traveled to New York to meet with former Venezuelan minister Rafael Isea. In a recording published on the digital moncloa.com, Fuentes Gago appears addressing the former Chavista official: “If it helps us prevent Podemos from arriving, the better for everyone.” It involved Isea endorsing the authenticity of a document regarding an alleged payment of 7.1 million euros, in 2008, from the Government of Venezuela to the CEPS Foundation, linked to the beginnings of Pablo Iglesias’ party.
Before the judge, Fuentes Gago argued that at the time of the meeting with Isea in New York, in 2016, he had already been sent to a destination in the Netherlands. Commissioner Pino had sent him as an Interior attaché to The Hague so that he could pocket around 15,000 gross euros per month, the same as his wife, whom the operational director assigned to the same city a few months before. Despite this, Pino continued to count on him, via payment of allowances, for assignments such as the trip to New York on the extrajudicial mission against Podemos.
The acting head of the UDEF at that time traveled with Gago and other police officers and, upon his return from New York, he wrote a report that was not included in any judicial investigation. Years later, Rafael Isea made statements in which he assured that the document they gave him to visa was a photocopy. That interim head of the UDEF, José Manuel García Catalán, will testify as a witness at the request of Podemos, although Judge Pedraz has not yet agreed on the date.
Pino does not declare
For his part, Eugenio Pino has refused to give a statement at the National Court. He has argued that the questions for which he thinks he was going to be questioned were already answered within the framework of the Dina piece, the Villarejo case, and in his three appearances before the investigative committees of the Congress of Deputies.
On Monday, the former Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, who denied any investigation against Podemos, also gave a statement as an investigator. Martínez made this statement in court despite the fact that a series of messages exchanged with Commissioner Enrique García Castaño were included in the case in which the then number two of the Interior said to the Commissioner: “Those from Podemos who had a record, were you able to confirm anything?” ?” Commissioner Enrique García Castaño answered “nothing.” “Cagüenlaputa!” Martínez exclaimed.
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