A retired Spanish police commissioner told Madrid's Audiencia Nacional (Spain's high court for serious crimes) on Tuesday that he was never informed of Operation Kitchen, a covert surveillance programme targeting former ruling-party treasurer Luis Bárcenas between 2013 and 2015. Manuel Vázquez, who headed the economic crimes unit formally responsible for investigating Bárcenas, said neither he nor his department received any notification of the parallel spy operation, which prosecutors allege was orchestrated by senior figures in Mariano Rajoy's Interior Ministry to steal compromising documents before they could reach investigators. The testimony reinforces accusations that the operation was conducted entirely outside normal police command structures, with surveillance run through a separate unit linked to the intelligence branch rather than through established channels.