• Congress .. The PSOE yields and allows Commissioner Villarejo to appear in the commission that will investigate the 'Kitchen operation'

  • Sentence ... Former Commissioner Villarejo, acquitted of the trial brought against him by former CNI director Félix Sanz Roldán

The National Court will have to release José Manuel Villarejo in the coming months.

The court responsible for trying the former commissioner has already ruled out that he can issue a sentence before next November, when the maximum term of four years of provisional prison expires.The only possibility that Villarejo would continue to be imprisoned for longer was because, before on that date, the court would have handed down a conviction with high penalties.

The law allows

te that, even if a sentence is not yet final due to the presentation of appeals, the term of provisional imprisonment can be extended up to half of the sentence imposed.

In Villarejo's case, that elevated sentence may come, but it would never do so in time.

Fourth Section of Criminal Matters

He has verified that he will not be able to hold the Villarejo trial before next September.

Until then, the court has a complete trial calendar, and this calculation of dates has been one of the elements that led the court yesterday to order the release of Villarejo in the three cases under its responsibility.

These are the only three separate pieces of the macrocause against the former commissioner that have already been concluded and, therefore, have passed from the hands of the investigating judge to those of the court that must judge them. The point of going to trial delays even more the possible date of the oral hearing, since the case has ceased to have the preference that is given to cases with a prisoner.The decision of the Chamber did not mean the effective release of Villarejo yesterday because other preventive prisons still weigh on him.

They are those dictated in the main piece of the

Tandem case

The prison situation in Villarejo is complex and, according to legal sources, it is likely that Penitentiary Institutions will end up asking the National Court for clarification on the scope of the decision adopted yesterday. the resolution of the Fourth Section, the freedom of Villarejo only depends on the criteria of the investigating judge in the Tandem case, Manuel García Castellón.

And, in case of appeal, the court that reviews his decisions, which up to now has supported all the refusals to release him alleging risk of flight and destruction of evidence.With the decision of the Fourth Section in hand, everything indicates that the lawyer de Villarejo, Antonio José García Carmona, will again ask for his release.

The judge could extend his prison for a few months, but on November 5, four years after his arrest, Villarejo must be released. It is likely that his release will come earlier, backed by Villarejo's precarious health, than his lawyer has been highlighted numerous times.

Last week, the former commissioner had to be hospitalized and the court also made another decision yesterday.

Against the criteria of the Prosecutor's Office, it agreed that the three cases against Villarejo whose investigation has concluded be resolved in a single trial.

The investigating judge had separated each allegedly criminal charge to the commissioner in a separate investigation.

Now the Chamber considers the petition of the accused and considers it "more agile" to address them in a single trial, given the coincidences in the accused, crimes and proposed witnesses. The pieces that will go to trial are the so-called

Land

,

Iron

Y

Painter

.

The sum of the penalties claimed there for Anti-Corruption reaches 100 years in prison, mainly for crimes of bribery and disclosure of secrets.

Land

Villarejo's work has been investigated to favor part of the Cereceda family in business disputes.

The Prosecutor's Office asks him for 38 years in prison.

In the room

Iron

The prosecution's indictment is 57 years old and focuses on the commissioning of a law firm to spy on a competing law firm.

Finally, in

Painter

The petition is for 14 years, for the work of the former commissioner for the employer

Juan Muñoz Tamara

-Husband of the hostess

Ana Rosa Quintana

- and his brother against the claims of a former partner.In addition to Anticorruption and the State Bar, the Villarejo trial will have before

We can

as

popular accusation

.

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