Former Spanish king faces Saudi ‘gift’ inquiry
Supreme Court to investigate Juan Carlos over alleged kickbacks in high-speed train deal
JUAN CARLOS, the former Spanish king, is to be investigated for the first time by a Spanish court over his role in alleged kickbacks related to a highspeed train deal in Saudi Arabia, after a Daily Telegraph investigation disclosed that he had placed a $100 million “gift” from a Saudi ruler in an offshore foundation.
The supreme court prosecutor’s office said it could not investigate any acts committed by Juan Carlos before his abdication in 2014, but would seek to “establish or rule out the criminal relevance of events occurring after June 2014, at which time King Emeritus was no longer protected by inviolability according to […] the Constitution”.
Allegations of impropriety related to a €6.7billion (£6billion) contract for a Spanish consortium to build a highspeed railway from Medina to Mecca were previously examined by a lower court in Spain, which ruled out investigating the former king as it argued that any possible involvement had been prior to his abdication.
In March, after The Telegraph had revealed that Juan Carlos and his son, Felipe VI, were both named as the beneficiaries of a Panama-based fund started in 2008 with the $100million (£79million) “donation” from the late Saudi king Abdullah, Spain’s royal household released an unprecedented statement in which Felipe said he renounced any financial inheritance from his father. In the same statement, Juan Carlos said he had chosen a lawyer to “exercise his right to a defence”.
The investigation centres on the Panama-based Lucum Foundation and the possibility that the $100million given to Juan Carlos may have had some relation with the train project, even though the consortium led by 12 Spanish companies and two Saudi firms did not win the deal until late 2011.
According to court papers seen by The Telegraph, Juan Carlos was “very surprised” at the quantity of the “gift”, so wrote the former king’s financial adviser, who managed Lucum’s account at Swiss bank Mirabaud.
“He was expecting something in the order of a fifth of that amount,” the adviser wrote in a document now in the possession of Swiss prosecutors investigating alleged money laundering by Juan Carlos and associates.
Spanish court papers seen by The Telegraph also reveal that other individuals may have charged kickbacks on the project, apparently angering Juan Carlos, who enjoyed excellent relations with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and several other Arab states. According to evidence detailed in a rogatory letter sent by Spanish prosecutors to Swiss prosecutor Yves Bertossa, the Spanish consortium signed contracts to pay more than €200million in commissions to a Saudi business partner and Shahpari Zanganeh, the widow of Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
Prosecutors will examine whether Juan Carlos committed tax and possible money-laundering offences after 2014. Juan Carlos’s lawyer and Spain’s royal household both declined to comment.