No one doubts any longer that the patriotic police set up by the Popular Party (PP) when Mariano Rajoy was in power to try to stop the independence process in Catalonia existed and had more than enough economic and material means at their disposal to carry out illicit operations that would incriminate as many leaders as possible. Phones were tapped, dossiers were put together, false evidence was fabricated. All paid for under the so-called reserve funds and authorized by the high authorities of the Spanish state.
It was widely known that something had been brewing ever since 2012, when Artur Mas swung the steering wheel of the Catalan government out of the autonomous community lane in which it had been cruising since the beginning of Spain's transition. Although the PP was the executor, since it was in government in Spain, the PSOE was perfectly well informed about those movements through certain leaders designated for the purpose although as the years have passed they have pled ignorance.
The main drawback of a parallel police force is that, once the instrument has been created, separate from the official structures, if needs must, it can be used for many other purposes. All of them illicit, of course, but someone must have thought: who will possibly attempt to pull the strings of a police group designed to save the unity of Spain? As we are now finding out, the needs really came to the fore when former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas threatened to make public papers that compromised Mariano Rajoy through the Popular Party's alternative accounting records. It was then that the political-police unit widened its mission and, with the help of the famous ex-commissioner José Manuel Villarejo -the now-retired police officer who has had a finger in every pie over the last decades - set up an operation to steal the famous papers from the former party official and destroy his computer records, with a minister in the backrooms (Jorge Fernández) and a general secretary of the PP (María Dolores de Cospedal) in the engine room.
What they certainly did not foresee is that the number two of the interior ministry at the time, Francisco Martínez, when besieged and accused of being part of the so-called Operation Kitchen would, in a conversation via messages with the president of the National Audience court, José Ramón Navarro, say the following: "My big mistake was to be loyal to unscrupulous people like Jorge, Rajoy or Cospe." This is stated in the 56-page report by the anti-corruption prosecutor which has now been made public. Villarejo is today in prison and the PP is out of government, but Mariano Rajoy is once again at the epicentre of irregular police activities that he encouraged or consented to, and that Francisco Martínez, hurt because the PP did not provide him with parliamentary immunity by putting him on the candidate list, might have the urge to reveal.
This has already happened on other occasions when irregular situations have been brought to light by people who have been fired - Filesa, back in the 90s - and lovers who have been hurt - such as Corinna. But if Francisco Martínez is willing to explain all that happened in his presence in order to settle his score with the PP, it would be good if he didn't leave out all he knows, which is not insignificant. All he was privy to, first, as chief of staff of the PP interior minister in 2012, and then as undersecretary for security in that ministry until November 2016, when new minister Juan Ignacio Zoido took over, on the operation to abort the rise of the independence movement in Catalonia.