“I am not going to resign at the moment. It is my superiors who have decided that I stay.” And who are your superiors? “My general director [Mercedes González], the Secretary of State, the minister.” So, do you answer to the politicians, not the Corps? “I answer to whoever appoints me. The questioning of my honor is not established by third parties, but by me and my superiors.”
Lieutenant General Manuel Llamas, Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the Civil Guard, stated today in the Senate, in the investigation commission of the ‘Koldo Case’ and related matters, that he will not resign even though he is charged with malfeasance and obstruction of justice, after testifying this Friday before Judge Pedraz in the National Court.
Llamas, who denied that his case is more serious than that of the previous general director, María Gámez, who resigned due to an investigation involving her husband, suggested that UCO initiatives in corruption cases can be “toxic or supplementary to those who have the authority, which is the judge.”
Elaborating on this, he said firmly: “The investigator is your honor, not us. We are auxiliaries of the judicial body. Sometimes there is an excess of protagonism, a certain vanity about the ownership of the investigation.”
If they had not been proactive, they might not have opened the safe in which former president Zapatero kept jewels worth more than a million euros, he was reminded. “When I was head of Judicial Police [the same position currently held by Alfonso López Malo, who has denounced that Llamas asked the UCO to ‘stand aside’ in investigations around the Government], when I went to see a certain prosecutor his complaint was that the attached unit was acting independently and ahead of what he ordered. This is what I mean.”
He was answered, by the senators, that the assessment of what UCO has investigated regarding Zapatero and the ‘Leire Case’ has been assumed by the Prosecutor’s Office and by judges Calama and Pedraz. That David Sánchez, the president’s brother, has already been convicted. And that the Madrid Provincial Court has indicated that the investigations by Judge Peinado into Begoña Gomez, wife of the Prime Minister, relying on UCO, point to crimes that will be judged by a popular jury.
“We are mere auxiliaries of the investigations,” Llamas repeated, pointing out that he never ordered to “stand aside” in the investigations around the Government. And why have you not filed a complaint against Yuste and López Malo, who have claimed that you did say it?, he was asked again. “I am not going to answer you, I find it tiresome,” the DAO replied. In any case, he assured “not to remember” if he said such a phrase to Yuste and López Malo.
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