The retired commissioner José Villarejo yesterday assumed the role of lawyer for his own defense in the trial that is held in the National Court for three separate pieces of ‘Tándem’, the macrocause on his private businesses. He opened with anger in court and questioned one of the accused for hiring his services, thus overcoming the initial reluctance of Judge Angela Murillo, after even the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office took a position in favor of the retired policeman in this matter.
Villarejo, who is a registered lawyer, questioned María Ángeles Moreno, partner and director of Herrero & Asociados, a law firm that hired the commissioner to allegedly spy on the competition. He asked her to explain why she had not agreed with the Prosecutor’s Office, unlike other members of the office.
“Why haven’t you been on the glide path to a comfortable landing with the Prosecutor’s Office like the rest of your colleagues?” He said.
“I have not accepted that agreement with the Public Prosecutor’s Office because it offered a sentence reduction and I believe that I should not be sentenced because I have not committed any criminal act and I was not willing to offer my lies to the Prosecutor’s Office,” the defendant replied.
EVERYTHING TO THE FORCE
One of the lines of Villarejo’s defense is precisely that the Prosecutor’s Office has forced some of the accused to acknowledge the facts by requesting very high prison sentences and offering them in exchange for the confession very reduced ones.
Since the trial for ‘Iron’, ‘Land’ and ‘Pintor’ began, Villarejo has tried to speak in each session as his own lawyer, but until now Judge Angela Murillo had prevented him, arguing that it was not possible that in the same day they will exercise his defense himself and his other lawyer, Antonio José García Cabrera. “Alimón, no,” snapped the magistrate.
The morning was not without friction between the ex-commissioner and the court. Murillo called him to order several times to urge him to stick to the facts. However, Villarejo put an end to his intervention, making his anger clear.
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