Judge García-Castellón rejects an appeal from the bank against inquiring about “new facts” that are unrelated, according to his lawyers, to the hiring of the company of retired commissioner Villarejo
The National Court will finally investigate other possible assignments that the BBVA financial group made to former police officers, considering that they could shed light on possible irregularities and also confirm links with the controversial former police commander José Manuel Villarejo. This has been decided by the investigating judge of this macro-case, Manuel García-Castellón, after rejecting an appeal from the financial institution against inquiring about “new facts” in this case because, according to them, they have nothing to do with contracts made with the aforementioned retired commissioner.
According to the bank’s lawyers, this extension of the judicial investigations would have generated “helplessness” by investigating “behind” his back. However, in an order to which Europa Press has had access, the aforementioned magistrate answers that “there has been no secret, surprise or behind-the-scenes investigation of the appellant.” For this reason, it maintains its decision to extend the investigation and carry out new proceedings after incorporating the facts of the so-called ‘Kitchen’ piece into the case and accusing both the financial institution itself and several of its employees, all of them summoned to testify as being investigated. throughout the month of October.
These “new facts” are related to the hiring of Anbycol, a company owned by former police officer Antonio Bonilla, who was identified in the judicial investigation as one of Villarejo’s collaborators, which is why he also sits on the defendant’s bench in the first trial to the commissioner for his private business. In addition, these data appear collected in two police official documents, one from April 15, 2021 and another extension from April 25, 2022, which would reflect -according to the bank itself- the content of a Bonilla mobile phone.
However, according to the entity’s brief, when this information was found, the judge “had two options: investigate the facts in the so-called piece 7 (‘Kitchen’) or deduce testimony from them so that they could be investigated in another procedure or piece. But he did neither.” Instead, he points out, he ended the ‘Kitchen’ investigation, so BBVA understands that in this way the way to investigate these “new facts” was closed.
“Neither irregularity nor impairment”
The head of the Central Investigating Court number 6 replies that, in addition to there being no secret investigation, “neither has an investigation been artificially prolonged nor have surprise proceedings been agreed upon, but rather its practice has been estimated as soon as it has been received. the final official letter” and within the deadline. “No type of irregularity, injury or impairment is appreciated, neither of the right of defense of the appellant party nor of the rules that govern the orderly prosecution of the process,” insists the magistrate.
García Castellón affirms that this is not “any type of new, unknown illicit and about which there was no type of suspicion (…), but rather the pre-existence of a specific separate piece on such facts highlights that it has already been was aware of the factual substratum that concerns us, without prejudice to the fact that successive police reports have outlined and specified the criminal attributions”. “The cause is unique” and “no type of separation can be made, nor can borders be established, nor can it operate independently », he maintains.
In any case, the bank used in its appeal that it is about facts that are not related to the hiring of Villarejo. The only link with the ‘BBVA piece’ would be, in his opinion, “the mere circumstance that Antonio Bonilla was director of operations for this company some time ago”, something that he considers insufficient.
For this reason, BBVA’s lawyers -which was already listed as a defendant before these movements- denounce that “they continue to try to keep alive, by all means, an instruction that is amply exhausted.” In this separate piece of the so-called ‘Tandem case’, the judge puts the magnifying glass on the bank’s contracts with Cenyt, the Villarejo business group, to “execute” different projects at least between 2004 and 2017, some works for which said entity would have paid more than ten million euros.
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