Retired Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo is in his element during appearances by congressional commissions of inquiry, and he proved it again this Wednesday. In this case, for the third time in recent years, he revealed what he knew about the so-called Operation Catalonia, launched in 2012 under the government of Mariano Rajoy, through an information poisoning campaign with suspected police reports laden with grave consequences were allegations of corruption discredit the main Catalan secession leaders. As Villarejo has emphasized on several occasions, it was the National Intelligence Center (CNI) that “coordinated, conceived and directed” this operation to “neutralize” and “deactivate” the Catalan independence movement, although he also assured that he, like the National Police and the Civil Guard. Still, the retired police officer didn’t provide any new or relevant information about the state’s sewer system in his appearance.
Villarejo’s appearance was basically a reckoning with the secret service and above all with its director at the time, the now retired General Félix Sanz Roldán, with whom he has a heated argument over cross-claims in court. And along the way, he has resumed his following against everything and everyone: the “non-serious” governments of the PP; King Emeritus Juan Carlos I; former commissioners, politicians, journalists and editors of various media. His memory was very selective, always aiming to portray himself as an “undercover agent” who was actually just a minor character in Operation Catalonia, in which he stressed he took part because of his status as a civil servant.
The controversial commissioner therefore launched the third parliamentary commission of inquiry into political and police sewage, allegedly promoted by the Interior Ministry during the time of Jorge Fernández Díaz, against political opponents of the PP. This new investigation in Congress, which seemed doomed to failure, therefore began with the loudest appearance two days after the start of the campaign for the local and regional elections on 28-M, which, however, does not allow further appearances until after the election. Before Villarejo’s intervention, the commission agreed to give the parties until next Friday to present a new list of future requests for up to eight people, and to vote on it individually next Wednesday.
In theory, this new version of the State Police Sewers Inquiry Commission was mainly designed to investigate the alleged pressure that Rajoy’s executives put on the directors of the Andorran private band to provide evidence of the fortune hidden in the former Catalan President Jordi Pujol and his family in exchange for preventing the bank’s intervention due to the money laundering threat. For these events, almost a year ago, an Andorran judge indicted former President Rajoy and former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro for alleged coercion and forgery of documents; and Home Affairs, Jorge Fernández Díaz, former Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, and former Director General of Police, Ignacio Cosidó. However, the deputies present at the commission asked Villarejo few questions about this action or about this alleged interference. The interests of each party were different.
PSOE spokesman Felipe Sicilia focused on finding out whether Villarejo had direct or telephone contact with President Rajoy himself. The commissioner, who has repeatedly shielded himself by the fact that he is now 72 years old and his memory fails to go into detail, only remembered that he had contacted Rajoy, but he is not sure if directly because he did the then Secretary General had given the mobile phone to the PP, María Dolores de Cospedal, when the Commissioner was with her or because politics sent her a congratulatory message from the then President on the results of Operation Catalonia.
What Villarejo confirmed is that this operation existed, that it was an intelligence and state operation, and that it was aimed at “preventing an organized and structured part of Spain from maintaining the possibility of independence and the consequences that it entails”. Sicilia was very adamant about linking the implementation directly to Rajoy, but the commissioner only went so far as to reiterate that the initiative was “planned by the presidency of the government, although it was carried out by the vice-president” Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and the Secret Service were very much confronted with Cospedal at the time, with whom Villarejo had a relationship.
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José Manuel Villarejo, this Wednesday in Congress.Claudio Álvarez
The commissioner has shown his obsession with the CNI and his manager at the time, Sanz Roldán, in all his appearances in Congress. This Wednesday, he pointed out that the intelligence service then had “permanent relations with the PP of Catalonia” to set targets and that even one of its commanders had come to an Operation Catalonia meeting to discuss the withdrawal of the tanks in Barcelona. Villarejo has also taken the opportunity to rekindle the conspiracy theory behind the jihadist attacks in the Catalan capital and in Cambrils (Tarragona) in August 2017, which left 16 dead and dozens injured, affirming that he had passed on information that something was being prepared and that it was the CNI that decided not to investigate. Of course, as on the previous occasions he referred to this event, he offered no more evidence than his word.
PP spokesman Luis Santamaría’s questions to Villarejo focused on showing that the commissioner, who has worked for ministers from all governments, was involved in similar operations for former PSOE leaders, and asked him about alleged irregularities in the origin of the Belt case, which eventually uncovered Box B of the popular or GAL case on state terrorism against ETA during the time of Felipe González’s socialist governments. The intervention of Vox MP Juan Carlos Segura was chaotic. Not only did he not question the aims of Operation Catalonia against the pro-independence movement, but it seemed to him that there had been “little and bad espionage” against those he identified as “internal enemies” intent on harming Spain .
Unidas Podemos spokesman Pablo Echenique focused his entire intervention on what he called “media channels” that aimed “with their guns” at some political protagonists, notably those of his party. He asked about Antonio García Ferreras, a journalist from La Sexta; by Ana Terradillos, then at SER and now at Cuatro Televisión; by Mauricio Casals, President of Atresmedia; and by Tele 5’s Ana Rosa Quintana. Villarejo did not speak badly of any of them, with whom he admitted to having had a close relationship. The commissioner specified that the Grenadines report and the Pisa report (both about alleged irregularities in the financing of Podemos, which had turned out to be false reports), which were disseminated by some media despite a lack of credibility, were “false and gross rubbish”. . .
During questioning of ERC spokesman Gabriel Rufián, the police officer reiterated his knowledge of measures taken to protect the Crown and the King Emeritus, stating that he had already warned of some behaviors by Juan Carlos I and General Sanz Roldán, whom he accused of the to conceal irregularities of the former head of state. “The Crown is a fundamental institution, but it is protected not by hiding or changing it, but by correcting mistakes,” he said. Villarejo assured, again without providing any evidence, that the former director of the CNI had traveled to Abu Dhabi several times in recent years, where the king emeritus has resided since 2020, “to talk about his economic problems and opaque societies”. And he added that there are “extremely reserved funds” in the CNI, over which there is no control, “for unspeakable operations”, citing as an example an alleged entry into the apartment that Corinna Larsen, former mistress of the king emeritus, had in Monaco.
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