Marina Artusa
08/03/2021 12:36
Clarín.com
World
Updated 08/03/2021 12:36 PM
On August 3, 2020,
Juan Carlos I de Borbón
was 82 years old, a few muddles to clarify and the best version of
a letter
that he rehearsed a thousand times before the Royal House made it known to the Spanish: it was addressed to Felipe VI.
his son and who left the throne in 2014, and where he explained that he was self-exiling far from Spain.
"Given the public repercussion that certain past events in my private life are generating" and "to help facilitate the exercise of your functions, from the tranquility and calm that your high responsibility requires," he wrote.
For days, the secret destiny of the man who had moved all of Spain when Franco died in 1975.
he became king
, he was the raw material of the most fertile imagination.
Until it emerged that the emeritus king, investigated in Switzerland and Spain for
alleged illicit financial transactions
although for now he is not charged in any cause, spends his days peacefully
in a mansion on the island of Nurai, in the Persian Gulf, sheltered by the care and pampering of the United Arab Emirates.
A year of ostracism
A year of ostracism passed and, nevertheless, Juan Carlos continues to nurture
the scandal locker
: he received a visit from his daughters, the infantas Elena and Cristina, who took the opportunity to get vaccinated against the coronavirus earlier than they would have been in Spain, and presented two regularizations before the Spanish Treasury, a gesture through which, tacitly, he admitted to having evaded taxes.
The last chapter of the saga is the complaint of
harassment, harassment and illegal monitoring
that her former "favorite friend" Corinna Larsen presented in London against Juan Carlos I.
Corinna Larsen, in 2014. Photo: dpa
The details of the complaint are well documented by the Argentine journalist
Ernesto Ekaizer
, who has lived in Spain since the late 1970s and whose latest book,
The Naked King.
Story of a fraud
, it delves into the Bourbon's maneuvers and
reproduces unknown documents
of the plot mounted by the emeritus king and of the investigations that have him in their sights.
- Was it useful to have removed Juan Carlos I from Spain?
-The presence of Juan Carlos I in Spain aroused much irritation in sectors not only republican.
Many have felt betrayed by their conduct.
It is true that scandals existed and that his estrangement could not mute, but what would have happened every day with him here?
His departure did not serve to calm the waters and I think he was wrong in choosing the United Arab Emirates.
Because they are very close to Saudi Arabia, where the 100 million dollars that Juan Carlos received in 2008 came from, donated to Corinna and then claimed her.
-Is that Spain having a coalition government of which United We Can, a party that promotes the end of the monarchy, is a real threat to the Crown?
-Do not.
United We Can is integrated into the system.
They are not going to promote any campaign for a referendum against the monarchy.
They are not a danger to the capitalist system, as we know it, nor to the parliamentary monarchy that has ruled in Spain since Franco's death.
- What balance do you make of this year with the king emeritus outside of Spain?
- After a year of self-exile, I believe that his removal has to do with the sanitary cordon set up so that it does not splash and have devastating effects on the Royal House of His Majesty Felipe VI.
-How do you evaluate Felipe VI's reaction to his father's wayward behavior?
-On March 5, 2019, Corinna's lawyers wrote a letter to Felipe VI where they told him, and the letter is reproduced in the book, that he was the second beneficiary of Lucum, a Panamanian foundation created in Switzerland, and also from a foundation of Juan Carlos's cousin, Alvaro de Orleans, Zagadka, which in Russian means “enigma”.
This foundation was created in Litchestein in 2003 and has paid almost 9 million euros in aircraft rental for the King of Spain, he being the third beneficiary and his son, then Felipe de Borbón, the fourth beneficiary.
Other times.
Juan Carlos de Borbón and Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein.
Photo: dpa
-What was the reaction of Felipe VI.
-The response of Felipe VI was to give the letter to his father and go to a notary to say that he was unaware of being a beneficiary of the Lucum and Zagadka foundations, that he renounced in any case any inheritance from Juan Carlos I and respond to the lawyers of Corinna that he was not going to appoint any representative to negotiate with them.
And he also tells us that he renounces the inheritance.
A resignation that, according to the Spanish Civil Code, is not possible because Juan Carlos is alive.
They mount all that and take away the allocation of 200 thousand euros that they give to the emeritus king every year.
All of this will suggest that the whole issue of the monarchy is pinned down.
-You, in your book, call the king emeritus a "fraudster" ...
-In Spain, to avoid tax crime you have to present a declaration and a regularization.
When you present the regularization, you are not persecuted by criminal means.
But Juan Carlos is a fraudster.
In his case, the 100 million that Saudi Arabia gave him in 2008 are covered because he was king in office and had inviolability.
In 2014 he ceased to be king, he became king emeritus and was certified before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, which is the one that also judges parliamentarians.
As it is measured, all acts as of June 2014 can be investigated, both in the criminal and civil field, and therefore it must answer before the Justice.
-Didn't he know that, by leaving the throne, his situation changed?
-The paradox in his case, and that is what cynicism reveals, is that, when he ceases to be king, he continues to behave as if he were protected by inviolability.
It behaves after 2014 with the same impunity with which it behaved when it was protected by inviolability.
This is dramatic.
He did not mind destroying his own image or endangering the monarchy.
-Did the Royal House read your book? Did he get in touch with you?
-Don't have any doubt that they read it.
But I had no news.
It is not a new topic for me.
In 1996 I wrote a book,
Vendetta
, where I dedicate a chapter to Juan Carlos, who was king at the time.
I investigated two bank accounts that he had.
I went to the Royal House, they received me, they confirmed 90 percent of what I had and I wrote that chapter.
-Is the monarchy in good health in Spain?
-It will not be the same.
Nothing will ever be the same.
It will be a very weakened monarchy.
A greatly diminished monarchy with no possibility of recovering the prestige that it knew with Juan Carlos I and that has collapsed.
Madrid. Correspondent
Look also
Spain: after a year in exile, King Emeritus Juan Carlos continues to be threatened by court cases
Lastras de Cuéllar, the town in Spain where drinking water is a mirage