The “Operation Kitchen” trial this Wednesday reopened wounds of the “Gürtel plot” with the testimony of the main investigator of “box B” of the Popular Party. Inspector Manuel Morocho sat before the court, which is prosecuting the alleged parapolice plot to spy on former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas and steal “sensitive” information for the party, with the obligatory condition of telling the truth.
Against the president of the court, Teresa Palacios, who urged him to stick to the facts that were the subject of the oral trial, the inspector of the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police He delved into the pressures he received at the time he was investigating the financing of the PP.
As he said, He had impositions from his superiors so that the name of the former President of the Government Mariano Rajoy did not appear in his reports. nor that of “a person who appeared as an account agent”, in reference to the alleged “recipients of the funds” from “box B” and, specifically, to the former minister María Dolores de Cospedal.
His arguments about what he experienced when he investigated the “Gürtel plot” were not exactly new. In the statement that he made in June 2021, within the framework of the “Kitchen” proceedings, the inspector already said that he was offered a position outside Spain to separate him from the investigation of the popular accounts. However, this Wednesday he delved into certain details.
He said, for example, that His superiors told him that the “Bárcenas papers” were an “ideation” of the then treasurer and that they had no “plausibility.” In fact, they explained to him that the training accounting was the one that was audited by the Court of Auditors. He also explained that certain “objections” were raised about whether or not there was actually “off-the-book” accounting.
For this reason, he said, both he and his unit had to be careful with the investigation because “There were maneuvers that could torpedo or provide weapons so that later a nullity of some of the evidence would be requested.” “We had to go on absolutely solid bases, not take anything circumstantially or providentially,” he added.
Aside from the issues he explained about the “Gürtel plot”, Morocho assured that he learned of the existence of “a police operation without judicial authorization”, in reference to the “Kitchen plot”, and that there were certain police commissioners who asked him to carry out follow-ups on Luis Bárcenas’ wife, Rosalía Iglesias. Some monitoring that, he said, he never “authorized either in writing or verbally.” But, how did you verify that there was actually an operation against Bárcenas that did not follow the official flow?
As he explained, when he was immersed in the investigation of “box B” of the PP and, therefore, of the “Bárcenas papers”, Morocho received an email from the UDEF in August 2013 that informed him of a “transfer of information” by the Deputy Operational Directorate (DAO) of the body, then directed by the accused Eugenio Pino.
When opening the file, the inspector observed the name of the “indicted Luis Bárcenas” along with “a series of telephone numbers, related people, vehicles, places and companies.” This was for him the confirmation that some follow-ups were being carried out against the former treasurer of the PP without the corresponding judicial authorization.
Furthermore, he stated that his unit never asked for support from the Deputy Operational Directorate (DAO) of the National Police while he was immersed in the investigation of the “Gürtel case” and that the information he received in the email was “totally irrelevant” to the case of the PP’s “box B.”
«I realize that the DAO, which is not an investigative unit as such, gives me information that I did not know about. Please note that our investigation is secret. “This connection between secret investigations has a connection methodology that has not been fulfilled,” he explained.
In any case, the inspector reinforced the idea that the PP accounting investigation not only faced the complexity of the case, but also certain internal interferences that, in his opinion, could compromise its independence. His words, therefore, reopened the wounds that caused so much damage to the PP Government at that time, which was forced to leave the Executive with the motion of censure launched by Pedro Sánchez, now also surrounded by cases of corruption.