Paraguay
Internal Affairs deemed Villarejo audio recordings about Kitchen and the PP circle authentic
A police report validated recordings included in a case file in the Tándem case. According to material cited by elDiario.es, in one conversation Dolores de Cospedal says Mariano Rajoy knew about actions against Luis Bárcenas.
The Internal Affairs Unit of the National Police validated recordings of José Manuel Villarejo in the framework of separate parts of the Tándem case, according to eldiario.es. The report was prepared at the request of Judge Antonio Piña and, according to that outlet, cross-checks the dates of the audio files with entries in the former commissioner’s personal agenda to authenticate them.
Among that material is a conversation dated September 15, 2014, between Villarejo and Dolores de Cospedal. Still according to eldiario.es, there the former commissioner suggests that Sergio Ríos Esgueva, driver for former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas, be brought into the National Police to prevent him from being able to speak in the future about Operation Kitchen. The outlet also notes that Ríos Esgueva received 2,000 euros a month from reserved funds and that this incorporation ultimately took place.
In that same audio, cited by eldiario.es, Cospedal says that the president knew that Bárcenas had been stripped of compromising documentation for the PP linked to the party’s illegal financing. The former PP secretary general, according to the transcript reproduced by the outlet, went so far as to say: “He told me that himself, the president told me, nobody else told me.”
The Internal Affairs report was first reported by El País and, according to eldiario.es, transcribes a recording that had been aired years ago by RAC-1 and later handed over to the Police.
The Kitchen case has already been tried at the National Court and is awaiting a ruling. According to eldiario.es, these audio files were not heard in that proceeding. Mariano Rajoy and Dolores de Cospedal testified as witnesses in the trial, while among the defendants are former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and his former state secretary Francisco Martínez.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this fact.
