Spanish justice will not judge Juan Carlos I for the crimes for which he has been investigated in recent years. The reason is not that he considers him free of all guilt, but rather that in some cases he was covered by the immunity conferred by his status as king and, in others, he was able to regularize his accounts with the Treasury.
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This closes dozens of investigations, interviews and news that have scandalized Spanish society since the first information was uncovered in 2018 and that led the emeritus to self-exile in the United Arab Emirates in August 2020.
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This week the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court archived the investigations, that could have ended in the finding of tax crimes, money laundering and bribery by the monarch.
They won’t get that far though because some have prescribed, others were committed before his abdication in 2014 (thus he was covered by immunity) and the others remain without penalizing because a couple of regularizations before the Treasury—made at the last minute— saved him.
The truth is that the king emeritus used the inviolability (immunity) recognized by the Constitution to hide millions from unknown businesses or friends.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the funds served as economic insurance in case a political coup snatched the throne from him. And, after his abdication, he acted as a mattress to maintain a lifestyle that he could not afford with the annual state allocation.
The decision is positive for him and paves the way for him to return to Spain, a desire that he tactfully postponed while the justice system investigated him. However, his image is not clean. He does not declare him innocent and does not correct the errors that society has known since that trip to Botswana with a “close friend”.
A lover discovered by an accident suffered during a getaway to hunt elephants in the midst of the economic crisis in her country, a son-in-law convicted of several crimes, the separation from Queen Sofía —who retains her image as a selfless woman— and opaque movements of money in accounts international organizations have contaminated the story of a man who was forced to abdicate and practically flee his country
The beginning of the fall
It is likely that had she not fallen that time in Botswana in 2012, her then close friend Corinna Larsen would not have been known to existwith whom he was traveling.
The broken hip forced an emergency transfer to Spain for surgery and uncovered the whims of the king, while citizens counted the cents in the midst of the economic crisis.
The scandal had not ceased, which revealed more details about the couple, when another broke out: the investigation of his son-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarin, and his daughter, the Infanta Cristina. Although she only paid a fine, he entered prison in 2018. This Thursday, by the way, he was paroled.
Juan Carlos I was forced to abdicate in 2014 in favor of his son, Felipe VI, who has dedicated himself to recovering the damaged image of the monarchy and extending the distance with his father as his opaque money became known.
The first clue came precisely from Larsen’s voice. The effects of the media tsunami had led the couple to end, and the “best friend” began to become the worst.
In an infidence to former commissioner José Villarejo, a man who is now being investigated for various crimes, he told him that Juan Carlos I had received money from the king of Saudi Arabia.
Commission or gift?
When the recording became known, The Swiss Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation in 2018 for the alleged collection of commissions in the construction of a railway between Medina and Mecca, an operation in which Juan Carlos I intervened and from which a consortium of Spanish companies benefited. Switzerland ended its investigations in September 2021, without reaching a conclusion.
The Spanish justice, for its part, began its investigations when it saw that those of Switzerland were advancing. He went through several instances until he reached the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court.
The key to everything was to determine why the king of Saudi Arabia had transferred 65 million euros to an account of the Lucum foundation, of which Juan Carlos I was the real beneficiary, at the Mirabaud Bank in Geneva.
Was it an illegal commission or a donation? And, in the event that it was the second, why hadn’t he declared it to the Treasury and had he orchestrated a series of movements to make it difficult to track him down? The answer to the first question is still unknown.
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who ordered the transfer, died in 2015. And the second answer no longer matters because his lawyers presented a regularization to the Treasury in December 2021, which exonerates him.
The truth is that some time after receiving the millionaire sum, the king transferred it to Larsen. According to a person close to him told El País, that money was “for his new life plan with Corinna. A plan that contemplated his separation from the queen and her abdication. A project that was cut short.
After the breakup of the couple, Juan Carlos I asked Larsen to return the money, something to which she has refused, alleging that it was a gift.
Other investigations
The investigations led to another discovery. Allen Sanginés-Krause, a businessman of Mexican origin, transferred nearly half a million euros to Juan Carlos I, through a figurehead, which were used to pay for travel and some health services.
The emeritus has had to pay the mandatory inheritance and donation tax, which he did not do at the time. However, the regularization presented at the end of last year saved it.
There is also evidence that Juan Carlos I received gifts, such as travel and accommodation, from the Zagatka Foundation, from his cousin Álvaro de Orleans, which were also not declared at the time, but the possible criminal liability was annulled with the regularization before the Treasury.
In total there were two: one from December 2020 for almost 700 thousand euros corresponding to a tax debt from 2016 to 2018, when he no longer enjoyed immunity, and another from February 2021 for eight million euros for private flights paid by the Zagatka foundation.
On the other hand, the existence of a fund in Jersey was known, which was nourished, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, by “donations from unidentified people who supported the king between the 50s and 70s” and nine million euros donated by Simeón de Bulgaria.
His goal was to help him in the event of “an unconstitutional coup d’état or a similar situation.” However, in 2003 the same king explained that the fund was already “unnecessary” and was closed.
Now one case is pending: the lawsuit Larsen brought against him for harassment in the UK, where she lives. Interventions in court in July of last year focused on determining whether or not the king emeritus retains immunity from trial, a question that the English judge extended to the Spanish state.
In the opinion of the lawyer Luis García Segura, it is covered by it, although it is “a controversial and controversial protection.” It is necessary to wait, however, for Madrid to respond to London and the case to continue its course.
long-awaited return
Javier Sánchez-Junco, the king’s lawyer, will travel to Abu Dhabi to meet with his client and analyze the writings of the Prosecutor’s Office. As he has said, the emeritus will then be able to think about whether he returns to Spain.
It is no secret to anyone that this is the dream of Juan Carlos I, who, at 84, lives alone and infirm. On several occasions he has tested the ground and has not been propitious. With the endorsement of justice, perhaps his son, one of the most reticent, will give him the green light.
“If Juan Carlos died in exile, Felipe would cry tears of blood,” said Jaime Peñafiel, an expert on the monarchy. The landing strip now becomes wider.
JUANITA SAMPER OSPINA
Correspondent of THE TIME
MADRID
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