The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has attributed corruption to the PP in what is now known as the Cuarteles case, maintaining that his efforts, he has insisted, “prevented the judicial authorities from being informed” of the alleged irregularities that could have occurred in the adjudication and execution of works in 13 command posts under the command of Lieutenant General Pedro Vázquez Jarava, accused in the case.
The Minister of the Interior has pronounced himself in these terms during an appearance at his own request before the Interior Commission after transcending to public opinion the matter that a Madrid magistrate is investigating.
The one in the barracks “is a case of corruption that affects the Popular Party”, highlighted Marlaska. The minister has presented a chronology that, in his opinion, shows that the PP “stopped the investigation.”
Thus, he recalled that it was in 2016 when Internal Affairs of the Civil Guard began an investigation into minor contracts or cash advances that led the builder Ángel Ramón ‘Mon’ Tejera -linked to the Mediator case- to invoice 2.11 million euros to the Civil Guard, in works that “had experienced an unusual and considerable cost in their billing during the period 2014-2016”.
Grande-Marlaska has indicated that the general director of the Civil Guard during the last stage of Mariano Rajoy, José Manuel Holgado, ordered the investigation that Internal Affairs was developing into the Cuarteles case to be halted.
That PP administration committed “serious anomalies, to put it mildly.” It was allowed – he has denounced – “that he was then responsible for the Support Command of the Civil Guard, who was none other than Lieutenant General Jarava himself, who responded to the Internal Affairs report. They shelved it.”
The minister has assured that from the Ministry of the Interior of Juan Ignacio Zoido “an unprecedented resolution was taken, not to say unpresentable in a State of Law. In my view it is very serious: the political person in charge of the Civil Guard orders an investigation to stop of Internal Affairs”.
In the case, 193 works worth 3.3 million euros are investigated in 13 Civil Guard headquarters. The events occurred between March 2014 and April 2019. Many of these irregularities occurred in barracks under the command of Vázquez Jarava. Marlaska has said that Internal Affairs raised a report with his suspicions and Jarava himself was allowed to respond and it was not forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office.
As he has stressed, Holgado issued an “unpublished and unpresentable” resolution in which he ordered the filing of the proceedings “since new elements of judgment are not necessary” and has described the movement directly as “shelf.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project