• The police seize Francisco Martínez in his house his messages with the Interior leadership about 'Operation Kitchen'
  • Kitchen judge imputes former interior number two, Francisco Martínez, for stealing information from Luis Bárcenas

A judicial commission secretly interviewed the false priest who assaulted the home of Luis Bárcenas to try to prove whether he was sent by the Interior Ministry under the presidency of Mariano Rajoy . The judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón , who instructs the so-called 'Operation Kitchen', went to the Aranjuez penitentiary center about a month ago in the company of the Anticorruption prosecutors of the case, Ignacio Stampa and Miguel Serrano , to hold a meeting with Enrique Olivares.

The assailant is serving a final sentence of 22 years in prison by the Supreme Court for the crimes of trespassing, kidnapping, threats, illegal possession of weapons and injuries derived from this episode, which took place in October 2013 and for which there are still numerous unknowns. The investigators of the Kitchen operation try to determine if the false priest was part of the device allegedly designed by the Ministry of the Interior to rob Bárcenas of documentation related to box B of the PP.

The appointment at the Aranjuez prison was also attended, as EL MUNDO has learned, a coroner from the National Court to examine the mental state of Olivares and study whether he can give a statement in the judicial procedure investigating the espionage ordered by the Government of the PP against the former national treasurer of the party. Not surprisingly, the defense of Olivares already alleged during the trial the "psychic alteration" of his client seeking to be applied as a mitigating factor. However, the psychiatric reports established that the false priest's capacities for understanding and abstraction were adequate and that he was "capable of distinguishing normally between the lawfulness and wrongfulness of a conduct."

The para-police device named 'Kitchen' by the police officers themselves had, among others, the theft of documentation from Bárcenas, the assault on the restoration study of his wife in which he kept sensitive information against the party, the carrying out of follow-ups without a judicial order to all the members of his family and even the cloning of his mobile phones with the messages that were exchanged with the former Prime Minister.

All this to try to snatch from the former treasurer the arsenal that he had against the PP leadership in the middle of an open war with the conservative formation. Not in vain in the hands of Bárcenas were at that time, for example, the famous sms that Rajoy sent him after discovering his hidden fortune in Switzerland in which he gave his support with the famous phrase of "Luis, be strong".

Assessing your mental state

According to sources close to the meeting to this newspaper, the visit of the judicial commission lasted for approximately two hours in which they spoke with the false priest, on the one hand, the judge and the prosecutors; and, on the other, the coroner who came to assess his mental state and who has the mission of deciding whether he is in a position to give a statement before the Investigating Court number 6 of the National Court.

The event took place, in the middle of 'Operation Kitchen', on October 23, 2013 at 5:19 p.m. Then, Enrique Olivares broke into the Madrid home of the Bárcenas family, on Calle Príncipe de Vergara dressed in a priest's cassock and told the wife of the former treasurer, Rosalía Iglesias, that he was coming on behalf of the Bishopric of Madrid to process the freedom of her husband, who was at that time in provisional prison. After the assailant was received by the housekeeper of the Bárcenas family, he entered the building, met with Bárcenas' wife and son Guillermo , who was in the building. Then he pretended he was going to take a pill out of his briefcase, grabbed a revolver, and tied the three of them with bridles.

Olivares revealed to them that his mission was to seize the documentation that the former popular manager had on a "pendrive" and that, as he always told them, it would serve to overthrow the central government. For this, he even went to the office of Luis Bárcenas, an instant that Guillermo, the well-known leader of the musical group Taburete, took advantage of to get out, pounce on the false priest and disarm him. Then, the family asked the police for help, who appeared at the home just a quarter of an hour later.

"You give me the information that knocks down the Government"

According to the police proceedings, when the false priest took out his revolver, he pointed at Rosalía Igleisas and told Guillermo: "Lie down on the ground or I shoot your mother." Immediately after, and after handcuffing the three tenants of the house with bridles, Olivares turned to Bárcenas' son and blurted out: "Now you are taking me to your father's office; or are you giving me the information that will bring down the Government or I kill you. " The assailant insisted on Guillermo once again: "Either you give me the information or I give your mother a butt and I put her to sleep." At the same time he went to the domestic worker and said: "You are from Santo Domingo, so you know what is going to happen here." After reducing Guillermo Bárcenas to the false priest, the assistant took the firearm and ran to the street to ask for help.

One of the most striking elements of this event lies in the fact that, as reflected in the aforementioned proceedings, the escort and driver of the Bárcenas family, Sergio Ríos , suddenly appeared, who despite living outside Madrid, in the town of Valdemoro , and being free, he was prowling around the area and went up in record time to the house to reduce the assailant.

It should be remembered that Ríos at that time had been recruited as a confidant by the National Police and was receiving a monthly salary out of the reserved funds from the State. Currently, the driver is charged in Kitchen. The escort was justified in his police statement saying that he was taking a walk with his wife on General Díaz Porlier street, just behind the Bárcenas house, and that he was notified by phone by the custodian of a farm neighboring that of the former treasurer. Police intervened the fake priest with a revolver with a drum of 5 cartridges, 10 detonation cartridges of 8 millimeters, two steel balls and a neck strap.

Investigators suspect that this episode could have been part of the police operation and trace whether any of the officers involved in the operation, such as Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, commissioned Olivares to enter Bárcenas' home to steal documentation from him. So far, the accused police officers who have been asked about this event during the investigation have denied having any connection with it.

As EL MUNDO revealed, among the latest proceedings carried out by the instructor and the Kitchen prosecutors before the state of alarm was declared for the coronavirus - which has led to the paralysis of non-essential judicial activity - was the search of the address of former Secretary of State Francisco Martínez, currently charged in this proceeding. The Judicial Police seized half a dozen messages that Martínez exchanged with former Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and with police officers who were under his command addressing Kitchen's inquiries.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • National audience
  • National Police
  • PP
  • Mariano Rajoy
  • Luis Bárcenas
  • Aranjuez
  • Valdemoro
  • Castellón
  • José Manuel Villarejo
  • Madrid
  • Bárcenas case

Anticorruption Courts maintains that Bárcenas would escape despite the coronavirus crisis if he were released

SpainThe police seize Francisco Martínez in his house his messages with the Interior leadership about 'Operation Kitchen'

InternationalAssange also asks to be released due to the coronavirus