The National Court’s investigation into the dirty war against Podemos during the Popular Party government included this Tuesday the statement of two prominent members of the political brigade: its leader, retired commissioner Eugenio Pino, and chief inspector José Angel Fuentes Gago. . According to judicial sources, the latter assured Judge Santiago Pedraz that he does not recognize his voice in the recording of his meeting with a former minister of Hugo Chávez in New York, in which he appears saying that he traveled with a “mandate” from the president of the Spanish government at the time, Mariano Rajoy, to prevent Podemos from accessing the government.
Fuentes Gago said he was under investigation and only responded to his lawyer. The commander, currently on police leave, said he had not spied on any parties or members of political groups. And he doesn’t know of any Corps colleagues who have done it.
Chief Inspector José Ángel Fuentes Gago, one of the front-line members of the PP’s political brigade, traveled to New York to meet former Venezuelan minister Rafael Isea. In a recording published on the digital site moncloa.com, Fuentes Gago appears speaking to the former Chavista leader: “If this helps us prevent the arrival of Podemos, it will be best for everyone. » It was Isea which confirmed the authenticity of a document concerning an alleged payment of 7.1 million euros, in 2008, from the government of Venezuela to the CEPS Foundation, linked to the beginnings of Pablo’s party Iglesias.
Before the judge, Fuentes Gago argued that at the time of the meeting with Isea in New York, in 2016, he had already been sent to a destination in the Netherlands. Commissioner Pino had sent him as an internal attaché to The Hague so that he would pocket around 15,000 euros gross per month, the same as his wife, whom the operational director had assigned to the same city a few months earlier. Despite this, Pino continued to rely on him, through the payment of compensation, for missions such as the trip to New York as part of the extrajudicial mission against Podemos.
The then acting head of the UDEF traveled with Gago and other police officers, and upon his return from New York he wrote a report that was not included in any judicial investigation. Years later, Rafael Isea made statements in which he assured that the document he was given to obtain his visa was a photocopy. The interim head of the UDEF, José Manuel García Catalán, will testify as a witness at the request of Podemos, although Judge Pedraz has not yet agreed on the date.
Pino does not declare
For his part, Eugenio Pino refused to testify before the National Court. He said the questions he thought he was going to be questioned about had already been answered in the Dina case, the Villarejo case and in his three appearances before the investigative commissions of the Congress of Deputies.
On Monday, the former Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, who denied any investigation against Podemos, also made a statement as an investigator. Martínez made this statement in court although the case includes a series of messages exchanged with Commissioner Enrique García Castaño in which the then number two of the Interior told the commissioner: “Those from Podemos who had a criminal record, were you able to confirm anything? Commissioner Enrique García Castaño responded “nothing.” “Cagüenlaputa!” » exclaimed Martínez.
