The National Police wants to enter Congress in search of evidence against former PSOE deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, whom they consider to be the leader of the plot of the so-called Mediator case. In the brief presented to the Tenerife judge who is directing the investigation, the Technological Crime Unit requests "unrestricted and exclusive access to the office of the Congress of Deputies" assigned to the deputy known within the plot as Tito Berni.
Neither in the Presidency nor in the General Secretariat of Congress is there any record of a police search of deputies' offices or parliamentary group offices. The sources consulted in both Chamber bodies point out that a request by the examining magistrate in the Mediator case to search the office occupied by the person under investigation in his capacity as deputy would be denied for lack of purpose, since not even Fuentes Curbelo is in the Currently a member of the Chamber - he was forced to deliver the minutes on February 14 - there is no longer any stay in his name or objects of his property.
The judge has not yet ruled on the petition, but the Prosecutor's Office has, which proposes leaving the entry or not of the agents to the compound in the hands of Congress. The Public Ministry considers that only this authorization would empower the investigators to access the material of the former PSOE deputy that could still continue within the Lower House.
Congressional sources explain that what was Fuentes Curbelo's office is currently occupied by another parliamentarian who took possession of the minutes and the seat in the last plenary session of the Chamber. However, official sources of the PSOE assure that the office is not occupied at the moment.
In any case, from the Congress they add that, in the event that it was intended to register the office of a deputy in office, it would have to be the Supreme Court that requested it from the Presidency of Congress, given that parliamentarians are registered.
It would not be, they explain, a regular police search, but one ordered by a State power (Judicial), at the headquarters of another State power (Legislative), which is inviolable. In the same way that to prosecute a deputy, it is necessary for the Supreme Court to send a request for the affected person to withdraw the appraisal in his case. Relations between the judiciary and the legislature are always at the highest level.
With regard to the personal belongings of the deputy who ceases to be so, he must remove them himself from the office once he delivers the minutes. Regarding the iPad and the iPhone that the Chamber provides to all parliamentarians when they take possession of the seat, they must be returned or purchased for a pre-established price. If they are returned, the Chamber's services immediately format and delete them in order to be recycled.
In his statement before the judge on February 16, the former Socialist deputy explained that one of the two motives that had been intervened in his arrest was the one provided by Congress.
The Police registration request was transferred to the prosecutor of the case. In his response, to which EL MUNDO has had access, the prosecutor Jaime Serrano-Jover considers that he cannot support the police entering the building - it would be the first time that this situation occurred in Congress - in the terms in which The investigators requested it, because in their opinion it would violate the Constitution.
"Assessing article 66.3 of the Spanish Constitution, which provides that the Cortes Generales are inviolable, the Public Ministry cannot rule in favor of what was requested in the previous official letter," says the prosecutor for Anti-Corruption. "Although it is true that there is an open criminal procedure and that the request made has already been agreed with respect to the personal address of the person under investigation and the legal addresses linked to it, such a claim cannot be extended to what is requested today," adds the prosecutor.
However, Serrano-Jover provides an alternative solution that could lead to police access without the risk of violating the Constitution: that it be done with the authorization of the Chamber itself and in the manner in which it deems most appropriate.
"With the objective of complying with the purpose pursued by the investigation and in particular with the requested measure, the Public Ministry proposes to send a careful official letter to the General Secretariat of the Congress of Deputies for the purpose of authorizing the police commission access to the offices of the Chamber.
This, in addition, would be done "with the provisions and precautions that they deem appropriate, including the participation of the National Police Station of the Congress of Deputies for the delivery and intervention of computer terminals or data and information storage devices, documents or any other effects that belong to the investigated”.
Once the computer equipment that could be located is in the possession of the investigators of the Mediator case, the Prosecutor's Office supports that the court of green light the proceedings that they consider necessary, "authorizing, even, the change of access codes with the logical preventions and appropriate to this measure, measures that ultimately have already been agreed upon in identical situations with respect to the private and professional residence of the person investigated.”
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