We humans tend to remember the past with nostalgia, especially if we believe we have been victims of an unfair situation. This is clear from the exchange of WhatsApp between the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martinez and several of the defendants in the ‘Tandem case’, in which police sewers are being investigated and whose main defendant is former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo. Both the former operational deputy director of the police Eugenio Pino like the commissioner Enrique García Castaño, alias ‘el Gordo’They mention Operation Catalonia in one way or another in their messages and recall it to defend their work in the Interior.
In the thousands of messages from Martínez incorporated into the Kitchen case, to which EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA has had access, there are continuous references to his work in the ministry in relation to Catalonia. García Castaño’s message is from September 2017, in full effervescence of the ‘procés’ and with 1-O as a reference for the proclamation of Catalan independence.
On the 23rd the former head of the Central Operational Support Unit (UCAO) send this whatsapp to Martínez: “Because now nobody remembers the previous team, Operation Catalonia, political police, now it is being shown that a lot of damage was done to the separatists. They stopped investigating, nobody wanted to get wet, now and I’m glad the civil guards are the heroes, nobody calls them political police, they are honored, it seems that the national police does not exist, except to leak to the press where the uip sleeps “. Martínez responds with a laconic: “It is very unfair but you know well the reasons why that is so.”
“This is from our time”
The conversation with who was the number two of the police was much later, on August 9, 2019, and occurred as a result of information about the fortune in Andorra of the Pujol family uncovered by the Central Court of Instruction number 5, in the one in which the case to which the former president of the Generalitat gives its name is investigated. At 7:45 in the morning, Martínez sends Pino this message: “Wow… and this isn’t about Operation Catalonia, is it?“, to which the policeman answers: “This is from our time” and then adds “we knew it and we had a lot of data”.
Martínez asks if he did not come from “PPK” to be interested in whether they also knew about “the figurehead Francesc Robert Ribes“, to which Pino responds:” We had it all. Companies etc, the license plate of a vehicle in a pass between Chile and Argentina gave us the key. It was driven by a Pujol (…) And he was domiciled in Andorra. “He adds that by order of Martínez himself, it was reported” to the chief anti-corruption prosecutor (Mr. Salinas). [en referencia a Antono Salinas] and two more prosecutors…”
Then he points out that “the Panama thing is missing… A nonsense of millions of which the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office was informed… Of which they have NOT said anything to the Judge of 5… In the end it is still a big deal& rdquor;, Pino complains, so as not to miss the opportunity to complain that the magistrate has “the shamelessness to send trial about the pen drive!!!!”, for which he ended up being sentenced by the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid.
extreme care
What both Pino and Martínez do not comment is that the two investigating judges of the ‘Pujol case’, Pablo Ruz and José de la Mata, were extremely careful with the investigation and set aside everything that could have a suspicious origin, such as the memory stick that Pino tried to introduce into the case and that he was removed from the proceedings to safeguard the investigations.
Related news
On October 16, 2019, Pino returned to the charge: “We, as you well know, largely thanks to you, dominated the matter. The PSOE, formerly Zoido [por el exministro Juan Ignacio Zoido], he messed everything up. Political police, operation Catalonia, etc, etc. Everything to protect the emeritus and sink the PP. What a band.” Martínez does not even dispute the reference to King Juan Carlos and corroborates the comment: “What is happening is tremendous. What a fucking shame.”
In whatsapp, the conversations that Martínez, who is facing a prosecutor’s request for 15 years in prison for the Kitchen casemaintained with the one who was director of communication of the Ministry of the Interior, John Joseph Stephen, who informs him that Villarejo has spoken about his orders in Catalonia. It is July 2016 and he did it before a judge of the Madrid investigative courts, in the war that he had with the former Internal Affairs commissioner Marcelino Martín-Blas, because he had cited his son in a report on Whitening. It is the first time that it is spoken of the Operation Catalonia.