The case being followed in the National Court for the dirty war against Podemos during the last PP Government advances with each testimony or report delivered to the Santiago Pedraz Court. This Thursday, Commissioner José Manuel García Catalán, who was head of the Unit against Economic and Fiscal Crime (UDEF), has confirmed that one of the pillars of the political brigade, Chief Inspector José Ángel Fuentes Gago, traveled to New York to try to extract information against Podemos from a former minister of Hugo Chávez.
García Catalán had been summoned as a witness at the request of the purple formation. It was difficult for the commissioner to deny his presence at the meeting, the content of which was recorded and later published by moncloa.com. García Catalán’s professional license number appeared in the report he wrote after the trip to New York, along with that of a subordinate, and the contents of which were revealed by Abc. Those investigations were not prosecuted and, as in other cases of the dirty war, they were only used to be leaked.
In the recording of the meeting between the Spanish police officers and Rafael Isea, former Venezuelan minister, Chief Inspector Fuentes Gago assures that he attended that meeting in New York with “a mandate” from the President of the Government at the time, Mariano Rajoy, and adds that if with The information that the supposed confidant could provide him would prevent Podemos from reaching the Government, it would be “better for everyone.”
This Thursday, García Catalán told the judge that he does not remember that these statements were uttered in his presence, although he was present at the meeting. “Maybe I was in the bathroom,” he apologized. Fuentes Gago said in his statement that he did not recognize his voice in the recording of the meeting and that when the trip to New York took place, in 2016, he was stationed in The Hague.
García Catalán has made a second statement relevant to the case. As he told questions from the private prosecution, the idea of the trip to New York to gather information against Podemos came from the deputy operational director of the Police at that time, Eugenio Pino, accused in this case and prosecuted in the parapolice espionage case against Luis. Barcenas.
This morning, Bonifacio Díaz Sevillano, another prominent member of the political brigade, was also summoned as a witness. Díaz Sevillano’s statement has focused on not remembering what any of the other commanders assigned to the Deputy Operational Directorate did and neither did he.
Díaz Sevillano would have contacted several Venezuelan leaders in Spain to obtain information against Podemos, but this morning he said that his contacts with Nervis Villalobos or Alvarado Ochoa were not related to the political formation.
Mariano Hervás, number two of the Central Operational Support Unit (UCAO) of the Police at the time, has also given a statement as a witness. Hervás also traveled to Venezuela to look for dirt on Podemos, according to a conversation between Pino and the Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez. Today he told the judge that he went to Venezuela for a drug trafficking matter.
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