• Justice: The Kitchen judge charges the former Interior number two, Francisco Martínez, for stealing information from Luis Bárcenas
  • 'Operation Kitchen'.Interior removed Bárcenas from his agenda and payment notes in' B '

The Court of Instruction number 6 of the National Court has numerous recordings related to the so-called Kitchen operation in which reference is made to the alleged subtraction of recordings between Luis Bárcenas and Mariano Rajoy within the framework of the illegal operation ordered by the former dome of the Ministry of Interior

As EL MUNDO has learned, the investigators have numerous conversations in which some of the police officers involved and third parties, all of them recorded by Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, discuss the robbery of Bárcenas de tapes with the former president of the Government and they refer to them as the great finding of what the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor now calls as a "para-police" operation to snatch Bárcenas his arsenal against the party.

In these recordings a code language is used but easily deciphered in which it is suggested that the most valuable material of those who intervened to the former popular treasurer is yet to emerge. So far, as this newspaper revealed, it has been possible to prove that Bárcenas was removed from the PP box B throughout Spain, especially in the Community of Madrid , and its messages and meetings with colleagues and senior officials of the match.

In this way, the interlocutors of the intervened recordings have heated discussions about who is guarding "the tapes and recordings of El Barbas ", in clear reference to Rajoy. It should be remembered that the environment of the former treasurer has assured on numerous occasions that he has sound evidence of his conversations with the former president of the Government after discovering his millionaire fortune in Switzerland . In these recordings it was immortalized, always according to these sources, the negotiation that he had with him to detach himself from the party as well as the conversations in that context with other popular leaders such as Javier Arenas , with whom Bárcenas had a close personal and professional relationship. To the extent that Bárcenas would have recorded the key meeting he had with Rajoy in Genoa in full crisis with the party for his Swiss fortune.

EL MUNDO asked Bárcenas directly about the existence of this supposed archive of recordings in the exclusive interview he gave this newspaper hours before entering prison for the first sentence of the Gürtel case , which sentenced him to 33 years in prison. Bárcenas did not deny that he had such material and simply responded with an enigmatic "ask my environment."

To cite some examples of the confiscated material, there is a conversation between Villarejo and Enrique García Castaño in which the former requires him openly and directly for the "material of El Barbas ", insisting that he has had evidence that he is guarding and pleading Share the information with him.

Commissioner Enrique García Castaño, on his way out of the National Court.

Judicial collaboration

The former head of the Central Operational Support Unit (UCAO) of the National Police flatly denies in that conversation that he has such material despite the insistence of who was responsible for police intelligence for years. Likewise, García Castaño has denied in court, in the framework of the collaboration he is providing during the last months, to have proof that more material was stolen than the former treasurer's mobile phones.

In other recordings it is speculated again with the destiny that has been given to "the tapes" and "recordings" in which Rajoy supposedly appears. It is affirmed by another of the commissioners involved, Andrés Gómez Gordo , that they could have direct collaborators of the former operative deputy director (DAO) Eugenio Pino , and it also mentions the existence of a "hard disk" of Bárcenas with information that compromised the old dome of the PP.

In fact, this police command was the one who, in the first instance, put the police dome in contact with the driver of Bárcenas to become a confidant and explained that he was going to help get a secret copy of the famous hard drives destroyed by the PP in the office of Bárcenas at the Genoa headquarters.

Another of the recordings intercepted by the National Court uncovers a conversation in which direct reference is made to the theft of an electronic device to Bárcenas with information about Rajoy, who, on that occasion, however, police commanders refer without pseudonym, alternatively as "Mariano" or "Rajoy". They also specify that the information it contained has been deleted.

That mysterious recording was exhibited to Pino during the statement he gave in the framework of the piece that investigates the Kitchen operation at the beginning of the research on this piece, which is part of the summary of the Tandem case . In it, Villarejo addresses this issue with an unidentified interlocutor who agrees to his story and congratulates him on the work done with monosyllables and a serious voice.

'Paquito the chocolatier'

In turn, there are recordings that reveal disputes between police officers for knowing and monopolizing the control of information allegedly stolen from the former treasurer of the PP linked to Rajoy. They also refer to the political positions of the PP to those who reported using easily decryptable motes again. Thus, the former Secretary of State of the Interior is continually referred to as Paquito el Chocolatero .

Franciso Martínez has recently been charged by Judge Manuel García Castellón after the confession made by commissioner Enrique García Castaño months ago. He explained in detail how the former driver of Bárcenas, prior payment of reserved funds, stole the mobile terminals from the former treasurer and provided them in a Madrid cafeteria for his clone. This operation was carried out, according to the testimony of the former head of the UCAO, in the Vips of Ortega y Gasset Street in the presence of "three or four" agents of the General Information Commission specialized in information technology.

According to his account, which was ratified and extended last Friday before the National Court, a nervous Sergio Ríos , who was later awarded a National Police station and even with the purchase of a regulatory weapon for his personal use, handed them the devices phones and carried out the copy in the same cafeteria.

The information on the phones, which contained as EL MUNDO revealed, the messages between Bárcenas and the then president of the Government, among them the famous 'Luis be strong' after the discovery of the Swiss booty, was overturned in record time in a laptop.

Sergio Ríos, former driver of Bárcenas, hides his face with a helmet.ÁNGEL NAVARRETE

This device was previously acquired also using reserved funds, in this case linked to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Not in vain, the official note of the disposition of the funds has been found, which reads "SES Computer (Secretary of State for Security)". This laptop was purchased with the aim of being handed over to Martinez shortly after in his official office.

According to the statement of García Castaño, the computer provided it himself in his official office accompanied by several subordinates who helped him in the technical work of cloning the data. Some of them have already ratified before the investigators the commissioner's account, confirming the replica of the mobiles and the subsequent delivery.

This laptop was equipped with software that allowed Martínez an easy search for information on the contents of Bárcenas mobile phones. This formula was chosen, that of the independent computer with a built-in search engine without connection to the Ministerial Intranet, to prevent the information stolen from Barcenas from leaving any trace on the official Interior computer circuit.

Following the account presented at the judicial headquarters by the commissioner, Martínez had technical problems to consult Bárcenas's mobile phones on the laptop they provided and several police officers from the General Information Commission had to go back to his office to solve them.

Sensitive information

From there, García Castaño maintains that he did not maintain contact with Martínez on this matter and that they did not jointly analyze the material stolen from Bárcenas. It is limited to suppose that it channeled to its hierarchical superiors in the Government the sensitive information that was provided to it.

Martínez, who was cited last Friday as investigated by judge Manuel García Castellón, accepted his right not to testify. Hours earlier, he released a statement in which he stressed that his actions were always in accordance with the law, that he relies fully on Justice and that in this process he will always follow the instructions of his lawyers.

For his part, his former boss, former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, has already stated on other occasions that he is learning about the existence of the Kitchen operation through the media and that he fully trusts Martínez's actions.

What was communicated in his day to the minister was the discovery of manuscripts of the wife of Bárcenas that were taken away in the framework of the Kitchen operation thanks, once again, to the collaboration of the family driver, who in the bosom of the Ministry of the Interior was known with the alias of El karateka , and that allowed the Police to photocopy abundant documentation guarded by Bárcenas.

These handwritten sheets written by Rosalia Iglesias summarized the compromising elements they had against the party. All this at a time when Bárcenas had just entered pretrial detention for the first time and was in an open war with the PP dome. In these annotations Iglesias alluded verbatim to "works at Mariano's house" supposedly paid for with "black" money.

As Fernández Díaz has related to his environment, the explanation given by his subordinates at that time is that they had found that valuable information in a bin in the prison of Soto del Real and that they had managed to rebuild it after an arduous restoration process, extremes That never took place.

The cause that directly reaches a prominent member of the Government of Rajoy for the first time is still secret after more than a year of investigations and the taking of statements to all the police officers who intervened, which have mostly confirmed the existence of the police operation.

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Know more

  • Mariano Rajoy
  • PP
  • National audience
  • National Police
  • Luis Barcenas
  • José Manuel Villarejo

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