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The Police ask the judge of ‘Lezo’ to incorporate Villarejo’s agendas into the case
The retired commissioner Jose Manuel Villarejo has reiterated this Monday, during the trial at the National Court for ‘Tandem’, that his business group, CENYT, It was a cover for his work as an Intelligence agent for the State, ensuring that this was reflected in writing in 1995 and, more recently, in a report on the compatibility of police and private activities that he believes was commissioned by the then Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, on his own initiative.
On the other hand, he assured that did not get rich “personally” with these societies, even reproaching the State for not receiving “not one euro” to support them. This is how Villarejo has stated it during the statement he has given as a defendant in the framework of the trial where three separate pieces of the ‘Tandem’ macrocause are aired, focused on the espionage work that he would have carried out with CENYT for law firms, businessmen and individuals and for which the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office asks that he be sentenced to 109 years in prison. The former commissioner, in addition, affirms that the audios that were intervened were the work of the CNI and accused the secret services and Internal Affairs of creating a “hoax” once morest him.
According to the account offered by Villarejo, in 1993 the then Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez, through his Interior Minister, José Luis Corcuera, asked him to rejoin as an “intelligence agent” and two years later, “when the first incidents arose”, the commissioner wrote a letter where he explained “in detail” what was “the pact” by which he agreed to return as a spy. That agreement would have consisted of the State allowing it to have CENYT as a group of mercantile companies to provide “cover” for its espionage work for the State. For example, “there was a horse company to be able to enter the Arab world.”
“I’ve made a bit of a one-man band”
“I’ve made a bit of a one-man band, that is the reason why the different governments continued to count on my services, because it was versatile and I have adapted according to the needs, “he stressed.
Asked by the prosecutor Miguel Serrano, the now retired policeman has acknowledged that during In the years 2012, 2013 and 2014, in which some of these jobs were carried out, he received a payroll as an active agent, indicating that he was obliged to do so in order to be able to act “within the structures of the State”, while he was the “head of the family” of CENYT and was registered with the Madrid Bar Association as a lawyer.
Serrano wanted to know if there was official authorization for Villarejo to act with this triple aspect, to which the defendant has stated that already in 1995, “when the first incidents arose,” he wrote a letter where he explained “in detail” what “the pact was. “whereby he agreed to return to active duty as an Intelligence agent and with the” coverage “of his companies. “They never answered me and told me: ‘You have gone crazy'”, has settled.
In addition, he recalled that there is a compatibility file for the years 2015 and 2016 that gave the go-ahead for CENYT to combine, which he has defined as “a multidisciplinary company that covered the scope of any law firm and intelligence analysis”, with its police status.
Villarejo has clarified that he did not request that this new report be prepared. “I didn’t ask for anything. I was convinced that I was working for my country, for the different governmentsAnd, therefore, asking the current Prime Minister for explanations of how my situation was or was not legalized seemed to me to be a real incongruity, “he stressed.
“All intelligence work is usually secret”
Thus, he has indicated that he believes that said report was ordered by the Minister of the Interior, then Fernández Díaz, “probably at the suggestion of the Prime Minister, who would start to worry”, due to the appearance of the first information in the press regarding the commissioner.
However, it has stated that it did collaborate in the preparation of the report. Specifically, he has detailed that he met with the head of the Deputy Operational Directorate (DAO) and the director general of the Police at the time, Eugenio Pino and Ignacio Cosidó, respectively, to provide data for this purpose.
In any case, Villarejo has defended that “all intelligence work is usually secret”, so “there is very little that is written.” For example, you have noted, “neither I believe that there is written authorization to finance terrorists and to release kidnapped, and it has been done“.
