The last time he appeared before his honorable members of Congress, he hid his face with the regulatory mask that the Government imposed during the Covid-19 in indoor spaces. This Wednesday, the commissioner José Manuel Villarejo has gone barefaced to the investigation commission on the 'sewers' of the State and the 'Catalonia operation'.
“The march is going well, they call me a liar but here I am,” he pointed out, scathing, before the parliamentarians of all formations. Political representatives are aware that the retired agent often offers statements that are not accredited. But since he's a headline-making machine, they were looking forward to another stimulating afternoon.
Among his usual string of outbursts, Villarejo has assured that his intention is to vote for the PSOE leader, Pedro Sánchez, in the next general elections. “If I make it to December alive, I will vote for Pedro Sánchez because he is the bravest president I have ever met.”
The former commissioner says he holds Sánchez in high esteem for having dismissed General Félix Sanz Roldán as director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), despite the fact that the latter had warned him that he had in his possession information about “his father-in-law's saunas”.. “He came with it and threw it in his face. He is my idol,” he said.
Allusions to the 'Mediator case'
Villarejo made this comment in response to the PP spokesman in the commission, Luis Santamaría, the first to bring up the “saunas” whose ownership is attributed to the father of Begoña Gómez, Sánchez's wife.
Santamaría advanced that his party is “about to confirm the veracity of some documents” on this matter that “will undoubtedly give a lot of play” in the work of the commission.
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The ex-commissioner, already getting into the matter, explained that the Catalonia operation was directed by the National Intelligence Center (CNI) and that it was devised from the “entrails” of the Presidency of the Government in the stage of Mariano Rajoy. At that time, the CNI was in the hands of Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría.
According to Villarejo, the “fundamental guidelines” were given directly by the secret services, then led by General Sanz Roldán.
As he described, the Catalonia operation was an “intelligence” vigilante work orchestrated to stop the independence challenge, but he denied that the objective was to fabricate false evidence against pro-sovereignty politicians.
“The Catalonia operation is not understood without you asking the CNI. It is one of the many operations in which, in my capacity as an intelligence agent, I worked for the Government,” he stressed.
Later, he alluded to the Mediator case, which has raised so much dust in the PSOE in recent months.
“Neither the CNI nor the Civil Guard appear in this case. In my case there is no flying pussy, no coke, no generals who take the money and, nevertheless, I am here, asking me for 1,200 years, imagine the absurdity”, he lamented, referring to the cause in which he appears as investigated the former socialist deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, Tito Berni.
Accounts in Andorra
At another time, he referred to published information that linked independentistas with opaque accounts in Andorra, as a result of the evasion of capital recognized by Jordi Pujol, and specified that this matter was entrusted by the CNI to the Civil Guard because “they have never” trusted from the police.
As he explained, his intervention on the issue of Andorra was an intelligence note in which people linked to Juan Carlos I were mentioned, which led to a story in which the police were accused of trying to implicate the King in the case. Pujol.
Villarejo maintains that this caused him to be arrested shortly after, because “the CNI always accepts an order”, and for this reason he did not want to delve into the subject.. “Your honor puts me in the commitment that they will repress me, at any moment they will put me back in prison if I speak again or give more details,” he said.
In his view, the Crown is protected by “correcting mistakes, not covering them up or hiding them.” “And that has been my mistake, because there were other people who didn’t understand that,” he finished.
He said.