The former Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the National Police, Eugenio Pino, has defended before the National High Court (AN) tribunal this Monday that within the framework of the 'Operation Kitchen' case, what really existed was "an intelligence operation" aimed at tracking the money that the former treasurer of the PP, Luis Bárcenas, allegedly hid in 2013 in Swiss bank accounts.
This is how he stated it in his testimony as a defendant in the trial over the alleged espionage device that was supposedly launched in 2013 from the Ministry of the Interior of Mariano Rajoy's government to extract sensitive information from Bárcenas that could implicate PP officials and, therefore, supposedly hinder the judicial investigation into parallel accounting within the party.
Responding to his lawyer, Pino, who at that time held the highest operational responsibility in the National Police, specified that in 2013 the DAO received a warning about the possibility that Sergio Ríos, then Bárcenas' driver and now accused of allegedly being recruited as a informant, had been "proposed" to travel by car to Switzerland in order to "collect money" from the former treasurer.
In this context, he explained that " 'Operation Kitchen' is a name given by a journalist. From the police perspective of the DAO, when there is a car waiting to go, according to the informant's information, to get money, obviously we have to set up a service, no matter what. (...) We were not looking for documents. What we were trying to get was the money. And, furthermore, there was news about the existence of other different accounts."
Villarejo "took charge" of recruiting Ríos
From that moment on, according to his version, it was the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, also prosecuted in this case, who "took charge of the matter" of recruiting the former treasurer's driver as a collaborator.
Pino recounted that "Obviously, Villarejo came to me shortly after and told me he was going to collaborate," and acknowledged that he authorized payments with secret funds to Ríos because he "had no job or money" after Bárcenas' provisional imprisonment in the framework of the 'Gürtel case'. "He is a collaborator, we have to pay him something," he added.
Regarding the "intelligence operation" that led to Ríos being a confidant, the former DAO stated that he received a call from Commissioner Andrés Gómez Gordo, also accused, who told him that "Bárcenas' driver is being approached," meaning that other police forces—specifically, he pointed out, the Guardia Civil—were interested in his collaboration.
Villarejo, "a free agent" and the role of other commanders
From his perspective, Villarejo acted as "a free agent" dedicated to "gathering information" and "managing sources." "He was a man who dedicated himself to gathering information and carrying out operations that were assigned to him," he summarized.
The former DAO rejected that Commissioner Enrique García Castaño—whose case was dismissed for medical reasons—and Villarejo himself had carried out irregular or criminal actions in relation to this supposed intelligence operation.
Furthermore, he assured that it is "false" that García Castaño accessed the premises where Bárcenas' wife worked to obtain data, as this commissioner declared before the investigating judge. "This man did not enter anywhere. Nothing adds up for me," he reiterated.
Along the same lines, he denied that anyone informed him about the dumping of electronic devices that agents from Castaño's team allegedly carried out in a Vips cafeteria in Madrid. "I had no knowledge of anything," he stated.
Pino also denied having informed the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz or his then 'number two', the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez, both also accused, about the existence of police surveillance on Bárcenas' wife, Rosalía Iglesias.
Similarly, he distanced himself from Ríos' incorporation into the National Police force, rejecting that it was compensation for his services as a confidant.