Cospedal refuses to testify in Congress about the espionage of Bárcenas

The commission that investigates in the Congress the alleged parapolice plot to spy on the former treasurer of the PP Luis Barcenas It has entered its final section with the turn of the former secretary general of the PP María Dolores de Cospedal after the judge decided to leave her out of the judicial case of the ‘Kitchen case’. The former conservative leader has refused to testify, taking advantage of your constitutional right if it is not done.

Cospedal has asked to speak before the interventions of the spokesmen of the parliamentary groups began to announce that he will not issue an “answer” to his questions. The former secretary general of the PP recalled that she was called last June as investigated and that, weeks later, the judge declared her “exempt from all responsibility”, but as the anti-corruption prosecution and two political parties have appealed against that decision the matter is still open she believes it is better for her “right to defense” do not answer in commission.

The former deputy has come this Thursday to Congress half a year after his first summons, the one that was suspended at the last minute because the judge decided to indict her that same day with her husband, Ignacio López del Hierro, for the meetings that both had with the commissioner José Villarejo and that he recorded.

Both Cospedal and López del Hierro, who also appeared in the commission, they had to testify before the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón and admitted the meetings with Villarejo, but not having carried out orders or being involved in the espionage of the former treasurer Bárcenas, allegedly designed in 2013 with resources and funds from the Interior to take over the information that compromised the leadership of the PP and the Government of Mariano Rajoy.

The then leader of the PP also denied that the police officer Andrés Gómez Gordo, who was his head of security when he governed Castilla-La Mancha and is another of the main defendants in the case, I would comment on anything about the operation or the recruitment of Bárcenas’ driver as a confidant.

The explanations of the former secretary general of the PP convinced the judge, who left her out of the case unlike what happened with the then Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernandez Diaz, or the Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, both defendants.

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In other words, the judge circumscribes possible criminal responsibilities to the scope of the Ministry of the Interior, since considers that meeting with Villarejo is not a crime and that is the only thing that, in his opinion, can be attributed to Cospedal and López del Hierro.

Does not share that criterion Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, convinced that there are “sufficient indications of criminality” to continue investigating both. Among other reasons, because there are recordings from 2009 in which they offer Villarejo “specific orders that would be paid for with funds from the PP.”