Chief Inspector Manuel Morocho, who returned this Thursday to sit before the court judging Operation Kitchen, has denounced that the boycott orchestrated against his group from the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) caused several reports on the Gürtel case to remain undone; and that they even conducted “surveillance” and “monitoring” on him while he investigated that network. “There is a lot of information that came from foreign accounts that went unanalyzed,” the National Police officer responded to questions from the defense teams, who seek to cast doubt on whether the “pressures” described by Morocho affected the procedure targeting the PP. With this strategy, the defendants try to undermine the thesis of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the other accusations, which maintain that the espionage network against Luis Bárcenas, activated in 2013 within the Ministry of the Interior, aimed to steal sensitive material from senior party officials that the former treasurer might still have, so that it would not reach the Gürtel investigators and sabotage the National Court’s investigation.
—Do you know if your office was monitored with microphones? —a lawyer asked him.
—There are indications that yes, just like the vehicle we had assigned. I was followed and monitored, to see if my conduct was ethical or not. And if they found something unethical, they would have blackmailed me.
At this point in the interrogation, faced with the defense’s insistence on questioning him, Morocho even took out a plastic sleeve with a license plate inside and added: “Regarding the indications: we found a bag with screw materials, a drill, and official Police license plates in the office.”
Likewise, recalling how he was transferred from his unit to be placed under the direct command of Eugenio Pino, the top Police chief under Mariano Rajoy and accused in this trial, Morocho highlighted that this move caused a setback in the investigations. “I was working on the main part [of the case]. There were a lot of letters rogatory to analyze. There were pending analyses of money flow. There was work to be done.”
—And was that work done? —one of the defense lawyers then asked.
—Well, many [reports] were left undone. There is a lot of information that came from foreign bank accounts that we did not have the capacity to analyze because we didn’t even have the personnel —the witness answered.
Then, the former UDEF agent denounced that the high-ranking officers of the Corps also promoted a “strategy” to “dismantle the group.” According to the chief inspector, his team had 11 members in 2013, when EL PAÍS published Bárcenas’ papers and that line of investigation was reactivated. “In 2013, three officials left, one of whom had significant weight. In 2014, a sub-inspector left, and in 2015, five people left,” Morocho added, who also noted: “Some were replaced. But the group was left without investigative capacity.”
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“Those reports that were not done were because there was no investigative capacity, but they were planned reports,” emphasized the main investigator of the Gürtel case, who already said on Wednesday that he received “pressures” to “torpedo” the investigations. Among other details, the policeman narrated how the Police leadership tried to delay the reports he sent to the judge; how they sought to remove him “from the way”; how they insisted on removing President Rajoy’s name from a report; and how they even tried to buy him off with a better-paid position. “Once the PP entered the Government and took the lead of the Police, there was a change regarding the action,” he continued this Thursday, before stressing that the publication of Bárcenas’ papers meant a new surge of “pressures.”
The fourth week of the Kitchen case trial comes to an end this Thursday. The oral hearing will continue next Monday with interrogations of more witnesses, but before that, the court again heard Chief Inspector Morocho, who prepared dozens of reports that supported the investigations that cornered the PP over the corruption network led by Francisco Correa. After responding on Wednesday for almost four hours to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, the State Attorney, and the other accusations, he still had to answer the defense’s questions this Thursday, except for Jorge Fernández Díaz, Minister of the Interior in Mariano Rajoy’s Government, who already had the opportunity to question him the previous day.
During his testimony, Morocho pointed out that the boycott of Gürtel extended beyond the espionage of the former popular treasurer Luis Bárcenas and added that Kitchen “was a police operation without judicial authorization.” As he emphasized, all that network was done behind the backs of the UDEF and Judge Pablo Ruz, who was leading the case against Luis Bárcenas from the National Court. Precisely, when the chief inspector’s interrogation ended, the court began the appearance of Javier Iglesias, a lawyer linked to the PP.
The former treasurer said that Iglesias tried to bribe him in 2013 with half a million euros to sow doubts about Bárcenas’ papers: “He proposed to me, since the papers had been published by EL PAÍS, that I modify the papers, change the concepts and amounts with the same handwriting and format, to give to the press and create uncertainty about which of the papers were true.” Iglesias refused to testify last week, claiming attorney-client privilege due to his status as a lawyer. The court then suspended his appearance to study the case, and they summoned him again this Thursday to interrogate him.
Iglesias denied the episode presented by Bárcenas: “That is absolutely false.” “Didn’t you tell him to make the papers with the left hand?” the former treasurer’s lawyer, who acts as the private prosecutor, pressed him. “I don’t remember that…,” the witness clarified.
