The Appeal Chamber of the National Court has confirmed for the first time that retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo committed a crime of bribery by irregularly investigating, at the beginning of 2014 and as an active police officer, a person in the context of a conflict between Planeta and Kiss FM.
The crime of bribery is being one of the main points of contention between the court which has tried some of the multiple branches of Villarejo’s trial and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, convinced that the retired commissioner used his police status to undertake irregular investigations of third parties.
The ruling relating to this conflict between both communication companies was the first in which the fourth section You already saw that crime of passive briberyfor which he imposed three years and one day in prison on the retired commissioner, who is free as none of his sentences are final.
That resolution had the dissenting vote of the president of the court, Ángela Murillo, who does not consider that Villarejo’s conduct falls into this crime, against the criteria of the Appeals Chamber, which has just endorsed the sentence.
It does so by dismissing the retired commissioner’s appeal and confirm the three years of prison imposed on him for having illegally investigated, between January and June 2014, and on behalf of Planeta, one of the arbitrators of the award between this communication group and Kiss FM, the so-called project June.
The resolution, which can still be challenged before the Supreme Court, Police officer Antonio Giménez’s sentence is reduced to two years and nine months and credits that Villarejo offered his purely police work unofficially, “even promising illicit methods”, such as consulting official databases or paying collaborators.
He considers it proven that Villarejo, then in the Deputy Operational Directorate of the Police, and the other agent They met with former directors of the Planeta groupwho were acquitted, to deal with an assignment that sought to investigate whether whoever had been one of the arbitrators appointed in an arbitration procedure could have received bribes on account of such intervention.
This investigation was launched with the advance payment of 48,400 euros, Although Villarejo even requested one million euros, “about 333 times the monthly police salary of a commissioner.”
Villarejo “tainted” the function of the Police
The Chamber explains that the bribery committed by Villarejo It was “perfected” when he asked for money to carry out his public functionsuch as investigating a crime, unofficially and addressing a potential client.
Villarejo He was then an active commissioner without compatibility and he acted, says the ruling, motivated by personal lucrative considerations that went far beyond simple maintenance and management operations of his corporate conglomerate.
He “sold” his police work and thus stopped fulfilling his obligation, “moved by that profit, thus staining the public function that he embodied.”
He decided to carry out actions inherent to his position outside of it and his superiors – the resolution continues – “moved by his economic desire, thus corrupting the public function that he embodies, first placing his own professional public service activity at the disposal of a private entity for money” and “surrendering” it to purely private purposes.
His highest sentence, still appealed
The sentence of 19 years in prison that the Court imposed on Villarejo in his first trial for the Tandem case is being the subject of intense debate between judicial bodies.
The fourth section, responsible for judging Villarejo, has already dictated two sentences in which the crime of bribery is not appreciatedagainst the criteria of a magistrate, and imposes those 19 years on him for others as revelation of secrets and falsehood.
The first of them was annulled by the Appeals Chamber, precisely so that it could assess all the evidence in response to an appeal from the Prosecutor’s Office, which asked to be convicted of bribery.
After the second sentence that continues to acquit Villarejo for this crime, Anticorruption has insisted again and has appealed to the Appeals Chamberwhich must be pronounced again.
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