Former Spanish police commissioner and collaborator with the 'patriotic police' brigade José Manuel Villarejo has asked the National Audience court to investigate the "leaks" over Operation Catalonia, which he considers are being "used politically" by the Spanish government "to justify the amnesty law". Villarejo is referring to the secret papers on Operation Catalonia published this week by El Nacional.cat, La Vanguardia and elDiario.es. In his letter, Villarejo admits that what has been published are his "confidential intelligence notes" and emphasizes that these notes "were in the possession" of the judge of the case, the Spanish anticorruption prosecutor and "the Spanish government, through the interior ministry and the CNI [intelligence service]". In addition, he asks the judge to investigate "the leak" and resolve "who was responsible".
Tándem Case
Police leader Villarejo, who since the 1990s had been conducting irregular or illegal parapolice operations, for both the Spanish public authorities and private clients, was sentenced to 19 years in prison in July 2023 for crimes of disclosure of secrets and document forgery, in the first of a number of trials he has pending. He maintains that "much of the documentation that is being published" was obtained from part of the Tándem Case, which investigated the alleged sale of sensitive information in the possession of the ex-commissioner when he was in prison, and he emphasizes that that investigation "was started with perverse motivations". Villarejo has always accused the CNI and the Spanish interior ministry of being the origin of his judicial problems, and he asserts that the Tándem Case was initiated following a complaint from detective Francisco Marco, ex-owner of the defunct Método 3 detective agency, although "it was promoted by order of pro-independence figures, such as the Pujol clan."
Dozens of investigations affect Villarejo
The ex-commissioner, whose first conviction for the Tándem case is being appealed, is connected to dozens of investigation that remain open and, at present, has two pending trials that are expected this year: in one he will sit in the dock with businessman Javier López Madrid, who is accused of hiring him to coerce Dr Elisa Pinto; and in the other for another alleged assignment, in connection with an arbitration procedure between the Planeta publishing group and Kiss FM.
The relationship between Villarejo and Rajoy
José Manuel Villarejo informed the then-prime minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, about Operation Catalonia through two advisors from the Moncloa government palace. This is what the ex-commissioner himself asserted in an interview with radio station RAC1 this Tuesday in which, when questioned about the latest news published about the dirty war against the independence movement, admitted that Rajoy had been informed. In relation to the meeting with Rajoy that he himself recounted (in a recorded conversation) to the Spanish undersecretary for security, Francisco Martínez, Villarejo said that at a time when he was with the then-general secretary of the People's Party, María Dolores de Cospedal, in the midst of Operation Kitchen, Rajoy appeared and told him: "Get to work." "It was a way of telling me that he was aware of everything, that I should not be suspicious of those messengers that I received as his envoys," he specified with reference to the activities of the patriotic police.