The testimonies of the Kitchen plot continued this Thursday with the second shift of inspector Manuel Morocho. The police officer who led the investigation into the Gürtel plot said yesterday that he received pressure from his superiors to Mariano Rajoy’s name “did not come up”. In this session, he has revealed an internal “strategy” to “dismantle” the police group that tracked the Bárcenas papers.
As stated before the National Court, the magistrate in the case himself, Pablo Ruzasked the policeman to avoid the presence of his superiors in their meetings. “He told me that if they came they would not agree to the meeting,” Morocho said in court, pointing out again that relevant police charges were trying to hinder the investigations.
Furthermore, Morocho has described how he was forced to adopt measures of “self-censorship” for overcome interference of their direct bosses. The inspector has said that, in coordination with Ruz, he modified the official reports so that sensitive information did not appear in the main body of the documents, but in annexes. Thus, it avoided issues that could generate “problems” but without eliminating them from the reports.
Morocho’s appearance has revealed the magnitude of the internal pressures suffered by the police team and the strategy they carried out to stop progress on the PP’s B accounting. According to data provided by the inspector himself, in 2013 the team assigned to the investigation had 11 police officers. However, as he says, they were offered other positions or better salaries and they ended up leaving for other destinations, so that by 2015 most of them had already left the team.
Pablo Ruzaccording to Morocho’s statement, adopted a blunt stance regarding the possible interference of police commanders in the briefings. This institutional protection It allowed part of the relevant information to reach the judicial authority, although with confidentiality and caution mechanisms.
News in expansion.
