“Absolute zero.” “None.” “Neither by action nor by omission.” Félix Sanz Roldán, who was director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) between 2009 and 2019, has categorically denied that Spanish spies participated in any activity related to the so-called Kitchen operation, to steal information from the former treasurer of the Popular Party Luis Bárcenas. “The CNI always acts with absolute respect for the law. “No government of any color – of the four I had the honor to serve – asked me to do anything illegal,” Sanz Roldán assured in his testimony as a witness in the trial on the parapolice operation at the National Court.
—And this [doing something illegal] would have been.
The former director of the CNI has been dragged to the oral hearing at the request of the defense of former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo. Two great enemies for years, who have taken their disputes to the courts. The latter even went so far as to hold the former — without any kind of proof — responsible for the terrorist attack of 17-A in Catalonia. Villarejo, who sits on the defendants’ bench, has maintained for more than a decade that the cause of all his troubles is Sanz Roldán, whom he called “the troll,” since the complaint that ended in his arrest was supposedly filed by a former agent. This Monday, as the Kitchen trial enters its fifth week, the former head of the spies has denied that enmity.
The interrogation of Sanz Roldán has been very limited, since he remains protected under the Official Secrets Act. Something that was reminded both by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office before starting his testimony, and by the president of the court, Teresa Palacios, who cut off some of the questions. Like when the lawyer asked if the CNI conducted surveillance on Bárcenas’ wife, Rosalía Iglesias. This point is not in any of the indictment documents. The former vice president of the government Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, under whom the CNI depended during Mariano Rajoy’s government, already assured last week that the agency had nothing to do with the surveillance of the Bárcenas family. Despite this, the witness did ask to make clear that the CNI had “no activity whatsoever” in the Kitchen operation.
Another witness who appeared this Monday at the San Fernando de Henares headquarters was businessman Javier Pérez Doselt, whom the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office accuses of a fraud in public subsidies of 30 million euros. According to Dolset, who is also under investigation in another case for alleged maneuvers against judges and prosecutors along with the so-called PSOE plumber Leire Díez, the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez told him that he had received orders from his superior Jorge Fernández Diaz about the operation to steal information from Bárcenas. “So, is this man the person ultimately responsible for what happened here? No way,” he asked and answered himself referring to Martínez.
Read more Catalonia needs 60 billion in infrastructure investment to reach the European average
—The first day he was instructed to do things like this [referring to Kitchen] he should have resigned. And he didn’t.
Dolset took the opportunity to talk about an alleged operation against Villarejo a decade ago. According to him, his friend, the late journalist Patricia López, was “loaded with microphones” that the Civil Guard supposedly placed on her to “gather information.”
For his part, the former colonel of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard Manuel Sánchez Corbí has denied that from the department he led they tried to recruit Bárcenas’ former driver, Sergio Ríos, considered the mole of the plot to provide information about the former treasurer and his environment. “Absolutely not,” he said, stating that Ríos “was never the subject of investigation.”
