Villarejo denies having ordered a CNI meeting to be recorded: "What did I care about that cartoon about El Pequeño Nicolás"

The Prosecutor's Office requests 4 years in prison for the retired commissioner for discovering and revealing secrets

MADRID, 21 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo has denied having ordered a 2014 meeting of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) to be recorded and broadcast in a media outlet he owns on the investigation that was being followed at the time into Francisco Nicolás Gómez Iglesias, known as 'El Pequeño Nicholas'. "What did that cartoon matter to me," he said, while he mocked the system with which the recording attributed to him was made.

This is how the commissioner has pronounced this Wednesday in the framework of the trial that is being held against him in the Provincial Court of Madrid for an alleged crime of discovery and disclosure of secrets for allegedly ordering to record and broadcast the CNI meeting in question.

Said meeting took place on October 20, 2014. There, the then head of the Internal Affairs Unit Marcelino Martín Blas informed several CNI agents about the ongoing investigation into 'El Pequeño Nicolás', who was suspected of being pass --before various businessmen-- as a liaison between the Vice-Presidency of the Government and the Royal Household, and as an Intelligence agent.

Asked by his lawyer if he was aware that meetings were taking place at the CNI about Gómez Iglesias, Villarejo was blunt: "Not at all." The commissioner has thus distanced himself from the facts that are being judged and the crimes that are attributed to him.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, the commissioner was aware of the call for that meeting "and planned to record the conversation" with the purpose of disseminating it later in 'Sensitive Information' and other media "and thus be able to hinder, hinder or block the ongoing investigation about Gomez Iglesias.

The Public Prosecutor maintains that the journalist Carlos Mier -who at the time worked for Sensitive Information- called the head of Internal Affairs from his cell phone and "activated some type of computer application or software that allowed him to capture ambient sound without being noticed." by Martin Blas.

Villarejo has assured that the thesis that in 2014 he asked Mier to record a CNI conversation to later publish it in the media he owns is "absurd".

"The argument that I read in the summary is that I had asked for the phone months before to put a program on it and make the call... But why didn't I make it? Why do I need to involve a third party?" indicated.

The commissioner has stressed that he had "quite a few working telephones and virtual telephones" with a "computer program" with which he "called and the telephone disappeared". "But I did not call", he has settled.

Villarejo has not only denied having made the call and the recording, he has also mocked the fact that the recording in question was recorded. "What a funny program that leaves a trace of the call that has been made. It's a bit of a joke," he said.

The commissioner has insisted that he neither recorded said meeting nor was he interested in having knowledge of what was discussed in it. "What did I care about that 'Little Nicolás' cartoon. Everything is so funny," he said.

Villarejo has declared this Wednesday every time that the Madrid Court has resumed the trial against him after the sessions held in November.

In the previous session, the former head of Internal Affairs, Marcelino Martín Blas, declared that the recording of the meeting he had with CNI agents in 2014 was possible thanks to the fact that they placed a Trojan horse on his mobile, and that it arrived due to a prior call. de Mier, who in 2014 worked at a newspaper owned by the commissioner and directed by the latter's wife.

The Public Ministry requests four years in prison for the commissioner for the alleged crime of discovery and disclosure of secrets. It also requests three years in prison as necessary cooperators for the wife of the commissioner and owner of the 'Información Sensible' media outlet, Gemma Alcalá, and for the journalist Carlos Mier. The State Attorney's Office requests the same penalties for the same crimes.

Podemos raises his request for disclosure of secrets for Alcalá and Mier to four years in prison and the sentence that he calls for Villarejo to five years. In addition, he accuses the three of a crime of procedural fraud for which he claims eight months in jail for each one.

The accusation brought by the Platform x Honesty requests six years in prison for Villarejo and five for Mier and Alcalá for revealing secrets and for belonging to or joining a criminal group. He also adds a crime of procedural fraud for which he requests eight months in prison for each one, and another of insults and slander to public officials in which he demands six more months in prison.

The trial will continue tomorrow with the declaration of the rest of the defendants and the reports of the accusations.