The PSOE has presented an appeal for the National Court that reviews the decision of the judge in the Kitchen case to order that the PP sit on the bench as civil liability. The investigating magistrate denied the socialist request, alleging that it had been submitted when the deadline for it had already expired.
In the appeal brief, the socialists disagree with the judge’s arguments and estimate that they were within the period that the Civil Code establishes for cases of this type, in which amounts are claimed from those who, without having participated in the crime, have benefited. economically. In this case, the PP would fit into the figure of the lucrative participant because he was the final beneficiary of the maneuvers by the Ministry of the Interior to steal information compromising for the party from former treasurer Luis Bárcenas.
The letter from lawyer Gloria Pascual does not stop at demanding that the PP pay the slightly more than 50,000 euros of reserved funds that were given to the former treasurer’s driver so that he could spy on him. She demands that the expense of national police dedicated to maintaining surveillance on Bárcenas be added to that amount so that information harmful to the PP is not uncovered in the investigation of the Gürtel case.
The appeal indicates that, although initially the PSOE had determined the participation of a dozen police officers, the Anti-Corruption indictment estimates that there were at least 70: eight group chief inspectors, two sub-inspectors, eight officers and 52 agents.
The socialists ask the Criminal Court of the Court to order the preparation of a report estimating the personnel expenditure that this entailed, to later claim it from the PP in the trial for the Kitchen operation.
In the same appeal, the PSOE rejects that, as the judge in the case, Manuel García Castellón, has agreed, the Ministry of the Interior is considered civilly responsible for the crimes and that, therefore, the amounts that were stated in the sentence can be claimed. order the eventual convicts to pay. He indicates that what would be a payment to himself does not make sense, since the internal money would revert to the public coffers, where the money spent on Kitchen came from.
Thus, the PSOE maintains that the funds that are claimed in a conviction are only payable to those responsible for the crime and to the Popular Party as the beneficiary of the operation.
In addition to Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, the list of those investigated by Kitchen who the judge has sent to the bench includes the PP minister when the events occurred, Jorge Fernández Díaz. Also to his number two, the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez, whose defense has also appealed the judge’s decision not to seat the PP on the bench.