• Kitchen Courts: the judge imputes former minister Jorge Fernández Díaz for illegally spying on Bárcenas

  • Courts Cospedal disassociates itself from the 'Kitchen operation' and asks that the real origin of Bárcenas' Swiss fortune be investigated

The judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón has finished the investigation of the "Kitchen piece" of the so-called Tandem case and has proposed to try the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz and the former leadership of the Ministry for the police operation launched with the objective to steal material related to the judicial investigation of the Gürtel case from the PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas.

In the order to proceed to abbreviated procedure, the magistrate considers the constitutive facts of the crimes, discovery and disclosure of secrets, prevarication, omission of the duty to prosecute crimes, bribery, influence peddling and embezzlement.

In addition to the former minister, the judge sends to trial the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez, the former Deputy Director of Operation Eugenio Pino, the police officers José Luis Olivera, Marcelino Martín Blas, José Angel Fuentes Gago, Bonifacio Díez Sevillano, Enrique García Castaño, Bonifacio Díez Sevillano, Andrés Manuel Gómez Gordo, the retired commissioner and main investigated in the Tándem José Manuel Villarejo macrocause, as well as the driver of Bárcenas Sergio Ríos Esgueva.

María Dolores de Cospedal, when she went to testify at the Hearing last June, Chema MoyaEFE

In its resolution, the judge files the case due to lack of evidence for the former secretary general of the PP María Dolores de Cospedal, her husband, the businessman Ignacio López del Hierro, her chief of staff, José Luis Ortiz, as well as for Enrique Olivares.

In the 81-page order, Castellón rules out the existence of a political plot unrelated to the Ministry of the Interior, delimiting the facts subject to prosecution based exclusively on existing evidence.

The judge reports that those investigated in this separate piece, put in common agreement and with knowledge of the illegality of the facts on a date that could not be determined between 2012 and 2013, started the operation. Thus, Jorge Fernández Díaz, Minister of the Interior and chief political officer of this department, with abuse of his functions and knowledge of their illegality, urged Francisco Martínez, who was first his Chief of Cabinet and since January 2013 Secretary of State of Security, to launch a mission aimed at obtaining information and documentation that could be under the power of the aforementioned Luis Francisco Bárcenas Gutiérrez.

The objective was to remove said material from the judicial authority in the investigation that was carried out in the investigation into the Bárcenas papers, a branch of the Gürtel case.



Francisco Martínez Vázquez, continues the judge, assumed the coordination of the operation, which was entrusted, in terms of its planning and development, to the Deputy Director of Operations (DAO), Eugenio Pino Sánchez.

Pino, in turn, says the magistrate, commissioned this operation to José Manuel Villarejo Pérez, who, for its execution, first used Marcelino Martín Blas, who was in charge of the Internal Affairs Unit (UAI) of the National Police Corps, and later Enrique García Castaño, head of the Central Operational Support Unit (UCAO), who personally assumed the commitment to carry out the mission, using the Special Follow-up Unit attached to said Unit.

The operation consisted of recruiting a collaborator, close to the Bárcenas family, capable of facilitating the information and access to the documentation that was being sought.

The person chosen was Sergio Javier Ríos Esgueva (also called a cook, Kitchen, or K2, hence the name of the operation), who since the beginning of February 2013 was the driver of the Bárcenas couple, and a person of maximum confidence in the family environment.

The DAO, Eugenio Pino Sánchez, would have entrusted both José Manuel Villarejo Pérez and Enrique García Castaño, the development of operational tasks to gain trust and achieve the active collaboration of Sergio Ríos, in exchange for the delivery of 2,000 euros per month, plus expenses, from reserved funds, and subsequent entry into the National Police Corps.

This, for his part, continues to explain the order, he had to provide information that would allow them to steal documentation in possession of Luis Bárcenas and his wife Rosalía Iglesias. To access this person, García Castaño and José Manuel Villarejo Pérez used the Chief Inspector Andrés Gómez Gordo, who participated with them in the development of the operation.

The resolution indicates that the actions carried out have made it possible to verify that, without prejudice to the guidelines given by the minister, and the motivations that he may have, the purpose that guided both Villarejo Pérez and Enrique García Castaño, would really be to seize and keep said documentation in their possession, without handing it over to their superiors, in order to obtain some type of personal benefit; extorting or pressuring public officials or those responsible for the Ministry of the Interior, or simply with the purpose of preserving their respective positions in the police leadership and impunity in the illegal activities that, presumably, they had been developing in parallel.

Said documentation would have finally been located and seized on an undetermined date, but which can be placed in October 2013, and would be found, at least, in the possession of Enrique García Castaño, from whom Villarejo insistently demanded a copy, with the knowledge of his superior Eugenio Pino.

To obtain this information, the investigated would have accessed, lacking any authorization, the so-called "zulo" a commercial premises used by Rosalía Iglesias, inside which, apparently, a closet with a double bottom would be located from which said documentation would have been removed.


The judge explains the dysfunctions and irregularities in the management and control of the reserved funds would have allowed their illicit use, favoring both the financing of an inherently illegal police operation, as well as the personal enrichment of high-ranking police officers.

The judge points out that since the provisionality of this procedural phase it could be Francisco Martínez who allegedly authorized the payment of the funds reserved to Sergio Ríos.


Once the operation was completed, the head of the Central Court of Instruction 6 reports that in payment for the services provided and in order to ensure his silence, the Secretary of State maneuvered for Ríos to enter the National Police Force.

In his decision, the magistrate files the case with respect to Cospedal, López del Hierro, José Luis Ortiz and points out that, unlike the executive officers of the Ministry of the Interior, with respect to whom there is a solid evidence base in the case of these three The weakness of the reasons that justify his incrimination is striking.

The imputation to Cospedal and López del Hierro of an intellectual participation continues to be, the judge argues, "the result of a voluntaristic inference without any basis in any evidence, since there is no reflection of it in the proceedings."

The instructor rejects the request for an extension requested by the accusations and the practice of proceedings.

Regarding those requested by the prosecutor, the magistrate considers them useless and, in some cases, impertinent and recalls that our procedural legislation does not allow prospective investigations.

"The training activity - he adds - cannot be conceived as a kind of releasing the net at anchor in case the crime is found, but quite the opposite".

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Know more

  • Jose Manuel Villarejo

  • Luis Barcenas

  • Jorge Fernandez Diaz

  • National audience

  • PP

  • Maria Dolores de Cospedal

JusticiaVillarejo declares to the judge that Rajoy had a "direct interest" in the 'Kitchen operation' and that messages were exchanged on his mobile

CourtsCospedal disassociates himself from the 'Kitchen operation' and asks that the real origin of Bárcenas' Swiss fortune be investigated

JusticeFrancisco Martínez describes as "conjectures" and "fables" the annotations of Villarejo in his agendas that link him to 'Kitchen'

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