Francisco Martínez, former Secretary of State for Security and former number two to former minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, has launched a last-minute offensive in the Kitchen case, describing the PP itself as a potential “subsidiary civil party” responsible for espionage against the former People’s Treasurer Luis Bárcenas, from whom confidential documents on high-ranking officials of the party were allegedly stolen, in order to boycott the causes of corruption surrounding the party. Martínez’s defense has appealed against the order issued last Friday by the investigating judge Manuel García-Castellón, who decided to place him on the bench alongside the former leadership of the Interior Ministry and the National Police, but ruled it out. The same applies to the political force demanded by the PSOE, which appears as a popular accusation.
In their letter, accessed by EL PAÍS, the former Foreign Minister’s lawyers admit that they know that the judge’s recent decision “is irrepeatable a priori”; However, they add that, in their opinion, there are “extraordinary reasons” that allow them to promote this initiative. In this sense, the defense argues that there was an “unjustified exclusion of the PP as a citizens’ party”. In his opinion, it makes no sense that the defendants, according to the thesis of the accusations, “decided to spy on Bárcenas and steal sensitive information” for the benefit of the PP, and the main beneficiary remains excluded from the proceedings.
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Sources close to Martínez emphasize that it is difficult to understand that he did “everything for the PP” but “without the PP”. In fact, the former Foreign Minister’s lawyers describe it as “surprising” that no oral procedure was opened against the political force and that no charges were brought (“neither the public prosecutor’s office nor the public prosecutor’s office and, what is even more mysterious, nor the “Bárcenas family , PSOE and Podemos”) has requested that the party be charged as a legal entity during the investigation. Only at the end, when the investigation was completed, did the Socialists call on García-Castellón to hold the party responsible as a subordinate civil party. An option that the judge ruled out.
As the judge explained last week, this approach was “introduced ex novo” and could have no place. “Up to this point,” as the judge added in his order, “no claim in this sense” had been brought against the party and, in view of this, according to Supreme Court doctrine, this was “already outdated.” it also occurs “without specifying the amount or the specific facts and actions from which responsibility arises.”
Martínez’s lawyers acknowledge that as a defense they cannot demand that a legal entity be indicted, but they are appealing so that the PP is placed on the bench as a subsidiary civil liability, a lucrative participant. The former Foreign Minister’s lawyers are also demanding that the bail amounting to 120,000 euros imposed on their client be lifted.
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Last week, García-Castellón benched Jorge Fernández Díaz for the Kitchen case; to Francisco Martinez; Eugenio Pino, head of the National Police under Mariano Rajoy’s government; seven commissioners and chief inspectors (such as José Manuel Villarejo); and Sergio Ríos, Bárcenas’ driver, who was captured as an associate of the conspiracy.
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