Senior PP officials from the time of Mariano Rajoy, including the then prime minister, will have to appear as witnesses at the trial of the Kitchen casein which the operation plotted in 2013 within the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police to spy on former popular treasurer Luis Bárcenas with the supposed aim of stealing documents that could harm his party. The Fourth Section issued an order in which it admits the majority of the testimonies of political leaders requested by the accusations, including those claimed by the PSOE and Podemos, presented as a popular accusation. The list of accepted testimonies is composed mainly of police commanders, agents and leaders of the PP, among which, in addition to Rajoy, the former vice-president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría; the former secretary general of the PP Dolores de Cospedal; and the former Minister of the Interior Juan Ignacio Zoido.
The judges rejected the request to summon several journalists and did not accept the appearance of the current Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, nor that of the first prosecutor in the Villarejo case, Ignacio Stampa, demanded by the defense of the former number two of this ministry, the accused Francisco Martínez.
The Operation Kitchen trial will include, among others, former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, for whom the anti-corruption prosecutor is requesting 15 years in prison. The hearing is pending the National Court finding space, due to the “saturation of the plenary sessions” that the Court currently has, as the judges explained in their latest order. But the court wants the work to move forward and the evidence to be tested in the trial to be prepared.
The published resolution now responds to the demands made by the defense and the accusations contained in their respective writings, in which the PSOE and Podemos demanded that a dozen PP leaders and people linked to the party be summoned to testify at the time the events occurred. The judges agreed to summon them all.
In addition to Rajoy, Saénz de Santamaría, Cospedal and Zoido, the list also includes the former Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Interior of Madrid Enrique López; the former Secretary of State for Security José Antonio Nieto; the Interior Ignacio Ulloa; the former Director General of the Police, Ignacio Cosidó; the former chief of staff of Cospedal when she was President of Castilla-La Mancha (2011-2015) and Secretary General of the PP (2008-2018), José Luis Ortiz Grande; the husband of the former popular leader, Ignacio López del Hierro; the former minister and former deputy secretary of the PP Javier Arenas; and the former delegate for security of the party, Guillermo Barroso.
The operation against the former PP treasurer was activated after their publication The Bárcenas Papers on the party's box b and the corruption around Francisco Correa's companies. This is why Judge García-Castellón sent 11 people to the bench: among them, Fernández Díaz, Francisco Martínez and Eugenio Pino, former deputy operational director of the National Police.
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