The Court condemns Villarejo for bribery in his contract with Planeta and the Appeals Chamber facilitates including the crime in two pieces, by Ernesto Ekaizer
Two José Ramones –José Ramón Navarropresident of the Appeals Chamber of the National Court, and José Ramón González Clavijo, speaker and the magistrate Eloy Velasco have made a ruling that annuls the one handed down by the Fourth Chamber of the National Court that convicted the former commissioner Jose Manuel Villarejo to 19 years in prison for jumping the vassessment of the evidence of bribery and extortion crimes. Now the same magistrates will have to examine them and issue a new sentence.
At the same time, also this Tuesday, May 21, the Fourth Room has sentenced Villarejo for his work for the Planeta publishing house in the arbitration award with Kiss FM radio for the crime of bribery to three years in prison.
In this way, although the sentence that the Appeals Chamber has now annulled -Iron, Land and Pintor- had been the first of almost fifty separate pieces of the tandem cause (Villarejo case), it will turn out that piece number 12, that of Editorial Planeta-Kiss FM, will be the first to have condemned the former commissioner for bribery. The new sentence for Iron, Land and Pintor, according to judicial sources, will not be ready until the last quarter of 2024, at the earliest.
The Chamber will be made up of the president Angela Murillo, Fermin Echarri and Carmen Paloma. Although the latter has retired, she will obtain, according to the sources consulted, permission from the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to join the court. It is not a minor detail: Judge Paloma disagreed with her two colleagues and presented a dissenting opinion in Iron, Land and Pintor, in favor of convicting Villarejo also for bribery, in this case, passive bribery (crime committed by the authority or public official who, for his own benefit or that of a third party, receives or requests a gift, favor or remuneration of any kind, or accepts an offer or promise in exchange for doing something, or in gratitude for something already done).
Planet pays 40,000 euros
The magistrate Teresa Palacios She has been the speaker in the case of Editorial Planeta’s commission for a job that Villarejo offered in February 2014, and helped the business group to investigate the alleged bribes, according to the version offered by the then commissioner, from an arbitrator, Julio González Soria, appointed by the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, which faced companies from the Planeta group for the acquisition of the Kiss radio station. That award was unfavorable to Planet.
Villarejo was entrusted to investigate – the so-called “July report”, an adaptation of the first name of the target to be investigated – to Julio González Soria in order to gather information – from the database to which he had access as a police officer – to present a complaint against the aforementioned referee.
The then commissioner proposed the payment to his company Cenyt of a provision of funds from 1 million euros. Payment planet 40,000 euros to see if the data was worth what the former commissioner claimed, who made several reports with data obtained in his capacity as a police officer, in which he also collaborated with police officer Antonio Giménez Raso.
“Between January and June 2014, Villarejo and Giménez Raso, through Cenyt (owned by Villarejo), consulted improperly and without any authorization, by express decision and under the supervision of the former, the police databasess in relation to Blas Herrero, Ignacio José Baeza Fernando de Rota and Julio González Soria, all people cited in the investigation carried out by the aforementioned defendants,” the ruling states, among other activities “incompatible with their police function.”
“At the time of the events in which the events occurred, Villarejo was an active police officer and it was he who, the ruling states, requested remuneration to carry out what he framed in his private business derived from his status as a businessman with clients. A bicephaly that must be ruled out because it would fall squarely into what has been called by the doctrine ‘an authentic sale of public function.'”
However, the sentence acquits the person in charge of Planeta Security and the director of Legal Services, Antonio López and Luis Elíasrespectively, of the crime of active bribery (they paid the remuneration to Villarejo) considering that both were unaware of Villarejo’s status as an active police officer when they hired him.
It is likely that the court did not have sufficient information to issue this acquittal. What would happen if López and Elías’ bosses did know that Villarejo was a police star assigned to the deputy operational directorate (DAO) of the Police? Is there evidence of this?
It can be stated that from the recordings made by Villarejo there is this relationship from one of the heads of those responsible for security and legal services in 2014.
In particular, this newspaper has had access to that audio. The conversation recorded in that year (November 4, 2014) corresponds to a meal between the deputy president of Atresmedia and the president of La Razón, Mauricio Casals (Planeta and the newspaper La Razón are part of the aforementioned Atresmedia holding), Villarejo, the judge of the National Court Fernando Andreu, the commissioner José Luis Olivera and the businessman Adrián de la Joya.
The magistrate José Ramón González Clavijo He has been the rapporteur in the appeals against the exclusion, among others, of bribery crimes in the sentence that sentenced Villarejo to 19 years in prison in July 2023.
González Clavijo, one of the judges with the greatest authority and prestige of the National Court, makes the sentences for which he is the rapporteur “in the German way” or “in the European way” that is, with the system of numbered paragraphs, which makes it very easy. reading and locating the subjects.
The study that he and judges Navarro and Velasco have carried out lasted months (the appeals date back to September 2023) before reaching the sentence known this Tuesday the 21st. It should be said that before ruling on the crimes themselves, they make a review the previous issues of the entire case that gave rise to Tándem and particularly clarify how it was in accordance with the law for the prosecutors to order the arrest of former commissioner on November 3, 2017 (point 441 of the sentence. The evidence not evaluated by the court of the Fourth Chamber stands out regarding the evidence of the degree of knowledge of Villarejo’s police status and in connection with the bribery, all the evidence points out the Iron piece not examined (five) and in Land (2).
In point 547 they point out “when the omission of all reasoning regarding some of the evidence carried out is observed, the appeal of the Public Prosecutor’s Office must be upheld… And make the only possible ruling: declare the nullity so that the same court can issue another in which it is assessed. rationally the entirety of the test carried out…”.
Regarding the crime of bribery, the ruling states that “the Appeals Chamber, without ruling on this crime, a task that will correspond to the trial chamber, limits itself to examining the doctrine of the Supreme Court on the crime of bribery, the protected legal interest of which is correct impartiality in the exercise of public office, guaranteeing the probity and impartiality of its officials. According to jurisprudence, this crime does not require damage to the public cause understood as “verified and accredited damage” apart from the distortion that the crime entails. principle of impartiality or objectivity in the performance of the public activity. The crime would be consummated with the request or offer of a gift without the need for the external material result to occur or for the behavior contrary to the law that is sought to be effectively carried out, since from that moment the administration, as well as impartiality, is harmed. . of its officials.”
This doctrine leads, obviously, to include in the future sentence bribery crimes. Although the magistrates do not speak out, they are giving the clues for the Fourth Chamber, where there has already been a vote in favor of bribery, to do so.
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