The Prosecutor’s Office insists that the former head of the UDEF had “full knowledge” of the Kitchen

The prosecutors Miguel Serrano and César de Rivas have alluded to the same arguments that they already put forward to oppose the first appeal filed by Olivera against the decision of the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, Manuel García-Castellón, to prosecute the former head of the UDEF -along with a dozen other people, with former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz at the top- for his alleged involvement in the Kitchen.

Olivera maintains in his resources that he was unaware of the parapolice nature of the espionage on Bárcenas, pointing out that in any case he could be blamed for an omission of the duty to prosecute crimes, although he argues that when the Kitchen was developed he was director of the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO), with police intelligence work but not operational, so it was not their role to actively pursue possible illicit acts.

Serrano and De Rivas, in a report dated December 23, reject Olivera’s allegation to ratify that throughout the investigation “clear presuppositions of his incrimination” have emerged in the espionage that between 2013 and 2105 would have been orchestrated from the Ministry of the Interior, with police resources and reserved funds, against Bárcenas and his family to steal the compromising material they might have from the PP and those responsible and thus prevent it from reaching the hands of Justice.

“As head of the UDEF at that time (…) he was familiar with the implementation and development of Operation Kitchen, with details and details that implied knowledge of its illegality, allowing execution despite the fact that in view of his position he was obliged to prevent it,” they assert, emphasizing that it is not “merely omissive conduct, but active participation.”

Audios, agendas and Morocho

Anti-corruption relies for this on the conversations recorded by Villarejo, in the annotations in the commissioner’s personal agendas and in the statements made in court by Gürtel’s main investigator, Manuel Morocho.

Regarding the latter, remember how “he revealed the pressure received from Olivera to accept a position totally unrelated to his qualifications and experienceas well as their professional expectations”.

According to prosecutors, this “cannot be considered as a fact unconnected with Operation Kitchen”, but, on the contrary, as “a milestone of greater aggressiveness, and of an already openly illegal nature, within the framework of the protection and control of the repercussion that the investigation of the Gürtel case could have on the leaders of the Popular Party, a strategy in which that, as has been analyzed, the investigated actively participated”.

In this sense, Anticorruption specifies that Olivera, as a key piece of said “strategy”, would have been in charge of providing relevant information about Gürtel to Villarejo, who in turn would have transmitted it to the then general secretary of the PP, María Dolores de Cospedal, and her husband, Ignacio López del Hierro.

In addition, the Public Ministry highlights that Olivera and Villarejo would not have been a punctual collaboration, but that, based on the aforementioned indications, they would have reached “economic agreements” to prolong it over time.

Precisely because of that supposed equal, Olivera “would have protected the illicit actions of Villarejo, in some cases providing information on secret police operations, and in others, as in the case of Operation Kitchen (…), allowing its planning and execution despite knowing its illicit nature”.