Ignacio Cosidó has had the honor of being the first senior PP official to testify in the Kitchen case trial. At 09:44 this Wednesday, the former deputy headed up the uphill path leading to the National Court headquarters located on Madrid’s Génova street, just a few meters from the popular party’s headquarters. Summoned as a witness, the former director general of the National Police when the espionage operation against Luis Bárcenas was activated within that force and the Ministry of the Interior, appeared before the court for just over an hour. But his interrogation yielded no surprises: as he repeatedly stated, he never knew anything about Kitchen, nor about any parallel investigation devised against the former treasurer who threatened his party. He insisted that he also never ordered the shadowy commissioner José Manuel Villarejo on any mission: “He was not a person I trusted.”
The list of witnesses for this Wednesday’s session — the fifth of the trial — included Cosidó’s name as the main attraction. The former parliamentarian was supposed to testify on Tuesday, but the delay accumulated in the hearing forced his appearance to be postponed to this day. This postponement allowed former minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, the main accused and absent the previous two days, not to miss the appointment. In fact, Cosidó addressed him as soon as he entered the interrogation room. With a friendly smile and placing a hand on his shoulder, the former director general of the Police greeted him before standing before the three members of the court, chaired by Teresa Palacios.
From that moment on, Cosidó stuck to the script he had already written in the investigative commission opened in Congress about the plot, in which he testified in 2021. Did he know that the Deputy Operational Directorate (DAO) of the Police, headed by the accused Eugenio Pino, launched an investigation into Bárcenas separate from the unit that was following his steps for Gürtel? “No.” Did he discuss with Francisco Martínez, Secretary of State for Security, any kind of operation to obtain information about the former treasurer? “No.” Did he know that his driver, Sergio Ríos, was recruited as an informant? “No.” Did he hear anyone talk about a deployment called “Kitchen” or “cocina”? “I don’t remember. I have no knowledge.” As he repeated over and over, he knew nothing at all.
Fernández Díaz appointed Cosidó as director general of the Police at the end of 2011 — responsible for the famous WhatsApp message boasting in 2018 that the popular party would gain control of the Supreme Court’s Criminal Chamber “behind the scenes” —. He held the position until 2016. The investigations by the examining magistrate Manuel García-Castellón never targeted him, although the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requested his indictment a few days before the investigations were closed. Eugenio Pino and José Manuel Villarejo had pointed him out, but García-Castellón considered there was insufficient evidence to go against him.
Pino, who defends that Kitchen was a legal operation against a corruption suspect, said he discussed “everything” with the director general. Villarejo went further and directly stated that the former PP deputy commissioned him to participate in the espionage against Bárcenas: “Mr. Cosidó told me: ‘This is a very important matter in which the Prime Minister himself has an interest.’” However, when testifying this Wednesday as a witness, the conservative politician distanced himself from them. “I only met Villarejo once and it was a protocolary greeting when I took office,” he said, before emphasizing that the former DAO never spoke to him about Kitchen.
Cosidó has made a special effort to explain to the court that he was not involved in the judicial investigations. And that if the Police chiefs conveyed any data to him, it was generic information and at the end of operations. That is why, as he emphasized, he had a superficial knowledge that the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) was handling the Gürtel case. “I knew that UDEF was investigating, but I didn’t know that other Police units were involved,” he stressed.
Read more Ukraine debuts as a global player with its weapons in the Middle East
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office maintains that the Kitchen plot, activated at the top of the Interior Ministry and the DAO, aimed to seize sensitive material that Bárcenas might have kept from senior PP officials to prevent it from reaching the investigators of the Gürtel case. That is, the UDEF, which at that time was cornering the conservative party and was not informed of this parallel espionage. “I don’t remember giving any instruction about which unit should take charge of an investigation,” Cosidó clarified in response to questions from Pino’s defense lawyer, who emphasized that he also did not know that other units (such as the UCAO and Internal Affairs) conducted surveillance on the former treasurer. “In certain organized crime operations, it is very common for one unit to request support from another. But always, in this case, it would be under the responsibility of UDEF and, I understand, under the supervision of the judicial authority,” he added.
According to the former parliamentarian before the court, he also did not have “authority” over the use of reserved funds — which were used to pay the driver —. Nor did he receive any request from Bárcenas or his circle that they needed to adopt security measures. These words gain importance after several rank-and-file agents, assigned in 2013 to Internal Affairs, testified on Tuesday that their superiors asked them to monitor the former treasurer’s wife, Rosalía Iglesias, for her “protection” and without her detecting them. The Internal Affairs Unit was then headed by Marcelino Martín Blas, who is among the accused.
The limits of the case
Ten people sit in the dock in this trial (although neither Villarejo nor Chief Inspector Bonifacio Díez attended Wednesday’s session), with Jorge Fernández Díaz, Francisco Martínez, and Eugenio Pino at the forefront. The examining judge García-Castellón limited all responsibility for Kitchen to the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police; and excluded the so-called “political connection,” which pointed to senior organic PP officials and had led to the indictment of María Dolores de Cospedal, former secretary general of the popular party, and her then husband, Ignacio López del Hierro.
These limits imposed during the investigation are very present in the oral hearing. The court president allowed questioning Cosidó about his relationship with Cospedal during the espionage against Bárcenas: “It was limited, because she was serving as secretary general of the PP and also, I believe, she came to hold the presidency of Castilla-La Mancha.” However, when there was an attempt to delve further into the former PP leader, Judge Palacios warned that the former secretary general is not sitting in the dock. The judge also did not allow questions about whether there was “concern” within the conservative party that motivated any move against the former treasurer.
Read more Feijóo warns that foreigners who «abuse women or steal» will be regularized
