Ignacio Cosidó entered through the front door of the National Court this Tuesday without knowing that, a few hours later, he would leave without having testified in the trial of the Kitchen casewho had been summoned. The accumulated delay in the oral hearing caused the National Court to decide to postpone its interrogation for one day. So, if there are no new twists in the script, the former PP deputy, who was the general director of the National Police during the deployment of the espionage plot against former popular treasurer Luis Bárcenas, will finally sit this Wednesday before the court chaired by Judge Teresa Palacios. He will do so as a witness and with the obligation to tell the truth. In Congress he denied on several occasions that he knew anything about Kitchen: “I was neither informed nor should I be informed.”
The investigation into Operation Kitchen, directed by investigating magistrate Manuel García-Castellón, was never directed against Cosidó. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office tried to charge him a few weeks before the judge ended his investigations in July 2021, but he ruled it out. “The generality of the terms in which the request is formulated is striking, without reference to data, evidence, expression or any specific statement that allows the accusation of this person to be supported,” the magistrate justified when rejecting it.
Although, by then, there were already two testimonies in the summary that focused on the former director of the Police. On the one hand, Eugenio Pino, deputy operational director (DAO) of the Corps from 2012 to 2016, had told the judge: “Cosidó knew everything because I dispatched with him every day.” On the other hand, José Manuel Villarejo had implicated him. In fact, during an appearance in Congress, the commissioner did it again: “Mr. Cosidó told me: ‘This is a very important issue in which the President of the Government himself has an interest.’
All of this caused the former conservative deputy to appear twice in 2021 in the investigative commission opened in Congress on the “illegal use of troops, means and resources of the Ministry of the Interior, with the aim of favoring political interests of the PP and of annulling incriminating evidence for this party in cases of corruption.” In those interventions he already advanced part of the answers that the defenses and accusations believe he will repeat now in the National Court, where he did not testify in the investigation phase of the Kitchen case (neither as a witness nor as an accused).
These are the most relevant statements that Cosidó presented in both appointments before the Congressional commission, held on June 1 and November 18, 2021:
About his alleged relationship with Villarejo. “I have never dealt with Mr. Villarejo, I have never eaten with him, I have never spoken on the phone with him, I have never exchanged any type of message with him and I have never sent him any instructions through third parties,” he said, before adding: “I was not aware of any operation in which Mr. Villarejo was involved.” “I had a meeting that led to a protocol greeting upon arriving at the general management; that was the first and only time in which I have had contact with Mr. Villarejo,” he added.
About an investigation into Bárcenas. The popular politician asserted that he only knew of the existence of the Gürtel case, never from Kitchen: “I knew that there was an investigation opened by the National Court, which was being carried out by the Economic and Fiscal Crimes Unit of the National Police, in relation to Bárcenas.” “I didn’t know of any research other than that carried out by the UDEF.”
About the recruitment of Bárcenas’ driver as a confidant. “In my five years as director I never had knowledge of any informant in any police operation, nor should I have,” he stressed. “I didn’t know that the confidant could be in that or any other operation,” he added.
Who knew about Kitchen’s startup? “The only thing I can affirm is that (I) had no knowledge of the operation. Who had knowledge? (…) At this moment I am not in a position to be able to answer it.” “I don’t know who had knowledge of that operation. The only thing I do know with absolute certainty and I affirm with total clarity is that I had no knowledge of that operation.”
About the monitoring of Bárcenas, his family and his environment. “I didn’t know that there was a single police officer dedicated to spying on this man…” he insisted. “I was not aware that there were any follow-up operations on Mr. Bárcenas.”
On the use of reserved funds. “Neither in matters of reserved funds, nor in matters of duplicated identities, nor in matters of bent license plates, does the Director General of the Police have any jurisdiction,” he stressed. “None of the Police commanders who have the capacity to manage reserved funds inform me of the use of those reserved funds because the system establishes that the person they have to report on the expenditure of those reserved funds to is the Secretary of State for Security,” the former deputy explained.
What was the DAO informing you about? “Pino informed me of absolutely everything that was related to my powers as general director. What he could not inform me about – and should not – was investigations that were being carried out under a judicial mandate, such as the Gürtel investigation under the mandate of the National Court.”
About the pressure on the main investigator of the ‘Gürtel case’. “In no case did I exert any type of pressure on (chief inspector Manuel) Morocho,” he specified.
About his role within the Police. “The director of the Police does not direct police investigations. Police investigations are directed by judges and prosecutors. Therefore, for these purposes they are under the command of the judicial authority or the fiscal authority.” “(The agents) do not have to inform the director of the Police about the judicial investigations, they have to give that information to the prosecutor and the judge.” “You are responsible for your actions, your words or your deeds, what you cannot do is take responsibility for things that are foreign to you,” Cosidó apologized.
