The PP leadership has now defended Mariano Rajoy’s innocence in the Kitchen case. “I believe that time and justice will prove President Mariano Rajoy right, without a doubt,” said popular deputy secretary Elías Bendodo, this Thursday in statements to journalists in Seville. “Justice will put things in their place,” Bendodo insisted, despite the fact that Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s leadership initially avoided defending Rajoy’s innocence.
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On April 6, at the press conference after the PP’s steering committee, when asked if the popular leadership trusted in the innocence of the former popular president, deputy secretary Juan Bravo merely replied that the party believed in “letting justice work” and a desire for “everyone to assume their responsibilities”.
Now, however, Genoa changes its tune and defends Rajoy, while downplaying the impact of the Kitchen case “which happened many years ago,” Bendodo remarked, although it was the last time the PP was in government, between 2011 and 2018.
In reality, the summary never pointed to the former head of the Executive; but an Internal Affairs report preliminarily concluded that, based on audios intercepted from commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, a person nicknamed El Asturiano would have “knowledge” of the plot. Chief Inspector Gonzalo Fraga, the main investigator of Kitchen, pointed out last week that this was the nickname used by some involved to refer to Rajoy. For this reason, his interrogation this Thursday began with this question:
—Do you recognize yourself [in those nicknames]? —the PSOE lawyer, who acts as popular prosecutor, asked.
—My name is Mariano Rajoy, as everyone knows. And then everyone calls me what they want.
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Óscar Puente: “Absolutely surprising”
The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, described this Thursday as “absolutely surprising” that former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has not been tried for his alleged connection with the Gürtel or Kitchen case, since in his situation “Pedro Sánchez would have been put in the dock”.
In statements to the media, collected by Europa Press after participating in the PSOE’s floral offering before the monolith commemorating the Comuneros in the Valladolid municipality of Villalar, on the occasion of the Day of Castilla y León, Puente acknowledged that he had not heard Rajoy’s appearance as a witness before the National Court, which is trying the Kitchen case.
In the same place, asked about Rajoy’s testimony, the socialist spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, recalled that there is already a sentence that “condemned the Popular Party as a criminal organization” and that in his opinion shows that this party was “a whole structure for corruption and, moreover, using the State itself to try to cover up that corruption”.
For his part, the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, also said this Thursday that the former president did know about Kitchen and was even “giving instructions,” concluding that it was an operation “set up and ordered” by the PP.
