The head of the Central Court of Instruction number 6 of the National Court, Manuel García Castellón, cited next Friday as an investigator to the former Secretary of State for Security in the Ministry of Jorge Fernández Díaz, Francisco Martínez, for his possible involvement in 'Kitchen' a para-police operation that would have been paid with reserved funds and whose objective would be to subtract sensitive information from the PP to which it was its treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, to hide it from justice.
As eldiario.es has advanced and has confirmed Europa Press in legal sources, Martínez has been summoned this Friday at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, who investigates this matter in the separate secret piece number 7 of the Tandem macrocause on the illegal activities of the retired commissioner and in provisional prison José Manuel Villarejo.
This is the first political position called to testify as investigated for this matter. Since the investigations began in 2018, the proceedings have already been directed against the maximum command of the police at that time, the Deputy Operational Director (DAO) Eugenio Pino, as well as his deputies and various commissioners and inspectors, including Villarejo himself and the one who was head of the Central Unit of Operational Support, Enrique Garcia Castaño.
Precisely, in one of his last appearances on this matter, García Castaño contributed to the cause the content of two cell phones stolen from Luis Bárcenas in the context of the operation that he himself dumped on a laptop acquired formerly to show the information to Francisco Martínez, as reported by sources present at that interrogation.
Reserved Funds
García Castaño also played another role in that deployment. He personally entered the office of Bárcenas' wife to find some hard drives, posing as a client carrying a crucifix to restore. According to his testimony, he had no luck. He sensed that perhaps another of the accused commissioners, Andrés Gómez Gordo, had already taken them.
But the key piece was Sergio Ríos, the driver of Bárcenas. He was captured by Gómez Gordo at a rate of 2,000 euros per month of funds reserved during the two years that the operation was maintained. The receipts of those payments were held by Villarejo and were reflected in the archives of the Ministry of Interior, which after declassifying the operation, sent the documents it found to the National Court.
The former UCAO has always argued that it was a legal operation to seek hidden funds and frontmen that Barcenas would have been hiding from justice. He has also denied, as Eugenio Pino did in his day, that he had the name of 'Kitchen', the appellation that Villarejo would have given to the matter because he said that Ríos looked like a cook.
There is one more factor and it is that throughout these months of research there are several involved who have indicated Martínez as responsible for the reserved funds and as the person who was aware of the operation, either directly by Villarejo, or being informed by Eugenio Pino. The then General Director of the Police Ignacio Cosidó, an intermediate political position between the Secretary of State and the DAO, has not been charged or called to testify.