The judge of the 'Villarejo case' asks the parties about the extension of the investigation into the assignments to BBVA

The bank has already asked to end the investigations, considering that they are "exhausted" and that their imputation be lifted

MADRID, 5 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The judge of the National High Court, Manuel García Castellón, has asked the parties to rule on whether they consider it necessary to extend the investigation into BBVA's alleged illegal assignments to the now-retired Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo beyond July 29, when the current extension.

In an ordering procedure, to which Europa Press has had access, the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6 orders the transfer to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the rest of the accusations and the defenses so that within three days they position themselves at the regard. "Once the parties have been heard, let the instructor know what has been done to resolve what is appropriate," he adds.

Before the magistrate requested the opinion of the parties, BBVA already established its position in a recent letter where it urged him to put an end to the investigation, considering that "it is exhausted", as well as to file the case regarding the entity financial.

For BBVA, the proceedings carried out to date have shown "that there is no conduct constituting a crime of revealing secrets or bribery that is attributable" to the bank "or to any of its employees."

In this sense, he defended that Villarejo was not paid but rather CENYT -the commissioner's business group-, which "acted in a transparent manner in legal-commercial traffic as a company with legal activity and known by the competent authorities".

Along the same lines, he added that "no BBVA employee could believe that they were committing a crime by paying CENYT's invoices, taking into account that none of the CENYT deliverables found in BBVA contains data that the reader may assume to be of illicit origin."

However, he believes that "the investigation of some very specific facts allegedly constituting crimes of revelation of secrets and bribery has been transformed into a general inquisition of the life and miracles of the financial institution during the last 14 years."

In addition to the entity itself, another of the main investigated in this separate piece number 9 of 'Tándem' is the former president of BBVA Francisco González, who in the face of previous extensions has been advocating getting to the bottom of the investigations to clarify the facts.

According to the legal sources consulted by Europa Press, the investigators intended to put an end to the investigation, but Anticorruption is preparing a battery of proceedings that will make it difficult because some are seen as reasonable.

In this piece 9, the judge investigates the assignments that BBVA would have made to CENYT to carry out different projects at least between 2004 and 2017, some work for which the bank would have paid the commissioner more than 10 million euros.