Spain's Kitchen spy trial concludes after four months, verdict pending for ex-Interior officials
After 37 sessions and over 100 witnesses, the National Court trial of Spain's 'Kitchen' spy operation ended Tuesday. Former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and two top police officials face 15-year prison terms if convicted.
The Operation Kitchen
In 2013, while Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer of the ruling Partido Popular, was in pre-trial detention, the Interior Ministry under Mariano Rajoy’s government allegedly launched a parapolice operation to spy on his wife, Rosalía Iglesias, and his close circle. The goal, according to prosecutors, was to seize documents and recordings that could compromise the party and its leaders. Over a dozen police officers testified during the trial that they carried out surveillance on orders from superiors, including installing a video camera outside Bárcenas’s lawyer’s office. The operation’s existence was acknowledged even by the defendants.
A service had to be set up.
The driver Sergio Ríos was recruited as a confidant in the summer of 2013, given the codename “cocinero” (cook), which gave the operation its name: Kitchen. He was paid 48,000 euros from reserved funds. Surveillance continued until October 2013, when Iglesias detected the team, according to the head of the special surveillance unit.
- Sergio Ríos recruited as 'cocinero', operation begins
- Surveillance detected by Rosalía Iglesias, operation ends
- Trial opens at the Audiencia Nacional
- Trial concludes after 37 sessions, last words heard
The Trial
The trial opened on 6 April 2026 at the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid, presided over by Judge Teresa Palacios. Over 37 sessions and nearly four months, the court heard from more than 100 witnesses, including former prime minister Mariano Rajoy. Prosecutors presented police logs with photographs and testimony from agents who followed Bárcenas’s family. The prosecution argued that the operation was ordered from the top of the Interior Ministry to obstruct the investigation into the PP’s alleged slush fund.
Charges and Defendants
Eight people sat in the dock. Former interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, his former secretary of state for security Francisco Martínez, and former deputy operational director of the National Police Eugenio Pino each face 15 years in prison if convicted. Former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, already embroiled in other cases, faces the heaviest request: 19 years. Sergio Ríos, the driver, faces 12 and a half years. The other defendants include former internal affairs chief Marcelino Martín Blas, former UDEF head José Luis Olivera, and police officer Andrés Gómez Gordo.
- Jorge Fernández Díaz
- 15 years
- Francisco Martínez
- 15 years
- Eugenio Pino
- 15 years
- José Villarejo
- 19 years
- Sergio Ríos
- 12.5 years
Final Statements
At the final session on 28 July, only three of the eight defendants exercised their right to the last word. Fernández Díaz, Martínez, and Pino remained silent. Villarejo, who turns 75 next week, questioned how he ended up “stepping on such important toes” but expressed “absolute confidence in judicial independence.” He downplayed his notebooks, calling them temporary memory aids, and apologized.
I deeply regret the harm I may have caused to all those who have been implicated.
Sergio Ríos insisted he never knew the operation was illegal. “I have always believed that this was a totally lawful operation,” he said, adding that he had been followed and his phones cloned. Andrés Gómez Gordo denied any role in planning the operation, saying that calling Ríos “coci” in 2015 did not imply knowledge of illegality.
What’s Next
The three-judge panel will now deliberate. No date has been set for the verdict, and the sentence could take months. The case has already cast a long shadow over the Rajoy era and the PP, and the eventual ruling will determine whether the former interior leadership is held criminally responsible for the alleged parapolice plot.
