Madrid (EFE) Luis Bárcenas in what is known as the Kitchen plot, and also in the so-called “Catalonia operation” against the Catalan independence movement.
It will be the third parliamentary commission on the activities of the police and Interior leadership when ex-minister Jorge Fernández Díaz was in charge, who is precisely facing, together with his number two, Francisco Martínez, a request from the 15-year-old Prosecutor’s Office prison in the National Court for the Kitchen case.
The first, which dates back to 2017, pointed to the political use of the Police to persecute political adversaries, mainly Catalans, and the second, focused on the Kitchen operation, ruled four years later, in 2021, that the leadership of the PP ordered this alleged parapolice espionage on Bárcenas, who had information on the Gürtel case that could compromise the party, with the knowledge of his former general secretary María Dolores de Cospedal, “who reported” to former President Rajoy.
However, the publication months later of some audio recordings between Cospedal and former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, dated 2013, the year this alleged operation began, prompted the plenary session of Congress to give the green light to the creation of a new parliamentary commission on this alleged espionage operation that would have been orchestrated from the Ministry of the Interior.
Six months after that endorsement by the plenary session and two months after the first electoral appointment of the year, the commission starts this Tuesday, when it is expected that, starting at 1:30 p.m., its Bureau will be constituted and the presidency will be appointed, with the unknown who will appear this time, something that will materialize later.
It will not be focused solely on the alleged espionage of Bárcenas, but the deputies will also delve into the alleged police network that also splashes Fernández Díaz in the so-called Operation Catalonia, a matter being investigated by an Andorran judge following a complaint against him, former president Mariano Rajoy, former minister Cristóbal Montoro and other former leaders.
The complaint, presented by the Institut de Drets Humans d, Andorra, and the former president of Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA), asked to investigate them for alleged pressure on the bank to obtain information from Catalan politicians such as former president Artur Más, the Pujol family or the leader of ERC Oriol Junqueras during the “procés”.