(Madrid) Suspected of corruption and under investigation by the Supreme Court, the former King of Spain Juan Carlos announced his decision to leave the country in a letter to his son, the sovereign Felipe VI, cited by the Royal House.
Posted on August 3 2018 at 12 h 41
France Media Agency
“Guided now by the conviction to render the best service to the Spaniards, to their institutions, and to you as King, I inform you of my considered decision to exile myself, during this period, in outside Spain ”, wrote the former sovereign quoted in the press release of the Royal House, where King Felipe VI accepts and thanks him for his decision.
In early June, the Spanish Supreme Court announced the opening of an investigation to establish whether Juan Carlos was criminally responsible in a case of alleged corruption when Saudi Arabia had entrusted a Spanish consortium with the construction of the TGV from Mecca.
Justice has been investigating these facts since 2018, but by virtue of the immunity he enjoys, only the Supreme Court may seek to determine the responsibility of the former monarch, now aged 41 years, and only for acts committed after his abdication.
“This is a decision that I take with deep pain, but with great serenity,” the former sovereign continues in his letter.
“A year ago, I expressed to you my will and my desire to abandon institutional activities”, he recalls, affirming to have “always wanted the best for Spain and the crown. “.
“With the same ardor as to serve Spain during my reign, and in the face of the public consequences of certain past events in my private life, I wish to express my absolute availability to you in order to help facilitate the exercise of your functions, with the peace and serenity that your high responsibility requires. My heritage, and my dignity as a person, dictate it to me, ”writes Juan Carlos.
PHOTO HANDOUT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
The former king Juan Carlos and his son, the sovereign Felipe VI
On its site where the official letter was published, the Royal House specifies that the king underlined the “historical importance” of his father's reign “in the service of Spain and democracy”, while “Reaffirming the principles and values” on which these are based, the Constitution and “our legal order”.
Juan Carlos I er had abdicated in June 2008 in favor of his son Felipe, when the end of his reign had been tarnished by various scandals, and in particular suspicions about his opaque fortune and his close relationship with the Saudi royal family.
The investigation fell to the prosecution of the high court since “one of the people involved in the facts targeted by the investigation was then the king, the current sovereign emeritus Juan Carlos de Bourbon”, had indicated in June the Supreme Court.
“This investigation aims precisely to establish or rule out the criminal relevance [d’une poursuite] of the events occurring after the month of June 2008, date on which the King Emeritus ceased to be protected by inviolability, ”added the prosecution in a press release.
The file was opened in September 2018 following the publication of recordings of the old Juan Carlos' mistress, Corinna Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who claimed that the sovereign had received a commission for the concession of a contract of 6.7 billion euros (10, 5 billion Canadian dollars) for the construction of a high speed train between Mecca and Medina to a consortium Spanish companies.
“This would be a possible offense of bribery in international business transactions,” the prosecution reported at the time.
The Swiss daily Tribune de Genève asserted at the beginning of March that Juan Carlos had received, in 924, 100 millions of dollars from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in an account in Switzerland of a Panamanian foundation. The same month, the daily The Daily Telegraph 89184577 reported that Felipe VI was also a beneficiary of this foundation.
After the publication of these articles, Felipe VI withdrew from his father an annual endowment from the Royal Palace estimated at more than 100 000 euros (305 000 Canadian dollars) per year. Then he announced that he was renouncing his father's legacy “in order to preserve the exemplary nature of the Crown.”
