In the middle, Commissioner Carlos Salamanca goes to testify before the National Court in an archive photo.CARLOS ROSILLO
The National Court begins writing the second chapter of the long series of legal proceedings in the Villarejo case, the macro-investigation centered around retired Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo and his associates. The court has scheduled the second oral hearing on the corrupt network to begin this Monday. However, Villarejo is not among the defendants in this case, as the prosecution is focusing exclusively on commissioner Carlos Salamanca and businessman Francisco Menéndez Rubio, who were charged with conspiring to facilitate the illegal entry of high-ranking managers to Spain in exchange for Guinea companies Gifts and cash.
The first trial in the Villarejo case, whose verdict was only known six months ago, took place between October 2021 and September 2022. Retired Commissioner Villarejo, who was actually on the bench on that occasion, left the hearing with a verdict of 19 years in prison – a decision that the prosecution has appealed to increase the sentence. The National Court found him guilty of executing three espionage orders (Iron, Land and Pintor projects) against individuals. Iron focused on the police officer's hiring by the law firm Herrero & Asociados to spy on a rival law firm. Land dealt with the family war of the heirs of Luis García-Cereceda, the developer who built the luxury project La Finca in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid). And Pintor discusses how the businessman Juan Muñoz Tamara, husband of the presenter Ana Rosa Quintana, obliged Villarejo to illegally obtain data from a former partner from whom he was demanding a debt. Villarejo has other cases pending on other parts of the macro case.
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However, starting this Monday, the National Court will address a completely different issue. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office is now putting on the table the indictment against Commissioners Salamanca and Menéndez, two key figures in understanding the investigation into the Villarejo case. The summary comes from an anonymous complaint received by the Public Prosecutor's Office in 2017, which the State Department attributed to the businessman who later dared to cooperate with the investigators (thereby confessing his own involvement) and who provided the first documents used, to open the case – which, as a result of the search of Villarejo's house, expanded with numerous lines of investigation that remained to be assessed thanks to the enormous amount of material seized. “[En aquel momento], Menéndez shows us the fear he has. The first thing he tells us is, “Do you know what you’re getting into?” recalled the first prosecutor in the case, Ignacio Stampa, in a podcast published in 2023.
Menéndez, who worked for Guinea's state-owned oil company Gepetrol, recounted how he acted as an intermediary for that company's senior managers to do dirty deals with Villarejo. And he added that Commissioner Salamanca, border chief at Barajas airport and friend of Villarejo, also helped them enter the country illegally.
High-end cars (two Porsches), luxury watches and travel, transporting a box at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium to watch Real Madrid matches… All this adds to the list of gifts that Commissioner Salamanca received to close the doors of Spain open to Guinean businessmen who entered the country through Barajas airport without any controls, as the investigating judge Manuel García-Castellón and the public prosecutor's office explain. The ministry is demanding 10 years in prison for the national police officer. For his “extraordinary” cooperation in uncovering the conspiracy, Anticorruption is calling for just six months in prison for Menéndez, who was given protection by the justice system during the investigation.
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With this hearing, the regional court will resume the legal process, which will resume after the holiday break. But it will not be the only thing that attracts media attention due to its importance, since from this Monday the Madrid Provincial Court will also continue the trial on the origin of the assets of Rodrigo Rato, former managing director of the IMF (Fund International Monetary) and former vice president of the PP government that began in December.
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