Anti-corruption closes the investigation of the payment of commissions by Spanish companies for the AVE to Mecca

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has filed the only investigation that was still open for the alleged payment of commissions for the award of the work of the AVE to Mecca by a consortium of Spanish and Saudi companies.

After closing, last March, the investigation focused on a possible payment by the king emeritus in exchange for mediating so that the project was awarded to that consortium, the public ministry has also filed the piece that investigated whether the companies compensated officials or Saudi authorities to commission the works.

After four years of investigation, the public ministry has concluded that there is no evidence to support this thesis, which arose as a result of a conversation recorded by the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, with the ex-lover of the king emeritus, Corinna Larsen,

The alleged commissions in the work of the AVE to Mecca gave rise to the first proceedings that were opened in the Supreme Prosecutor's Office against the king emeritus.

In the file decree signed last March, the head of Anticorruption, Alejandro Luzón, indicated that it had not been possible to establish, "even in an indicative way", that Juan Carlos I received money in exchange for mediating in favor of the award to the consortium of the which included, among others, Indra, OHL, Adif and Renfe.

But Anticorruption kept another investigation open to clarify whether the companies paid to be awarded the jobs, and this is the one that has now been closed.

The public ministry had sent a rogatory commission to Saudi Arabia requesting financial information about two supposed intermediaries in the final concession of the project, one of them a member of the Saudi royal family.

But, after several unanswered requests, the Control and Anti-Corruption Authority of that country replied on April 4 that it had not found "transactions derived from suspicious activities" between the Spanish companies and two Saudi companies that were also being investigated, according to collects the file decree signed by the prosecutor Luis Pastor, which has led the Prosecutor's Office to close the case.

“Given the response to the rogatory commission requesting information, any approach that goes beyond the above,

The public ministry has verified that there were at least two commission agents who signed "consulting" contracts with the Spanish companies that aspired to carry out the work: Shahpari Azzamy Zanganeh, a Saudi woman who agreed to collect 95.7 million euros, although only he came to collect 45;

and Prince Abdelaziz bin Mishal, who died in 2017, a member of the Saudi royal family who signed a remuneration of 120 million euros, an amount that, according to the Prosecutor's Office, does not show that it was paid in full.

The public ministry admits that both did some work for the consortium of companies, such as attending meetings and events related to the project, in the case of Zanganeh, or mediating due to their "ancestry" before the Saudi authorities, in the case of the prince .

However, warns Anti-Corruption, ”it is not hidden from anyone that these contracts,

However, in view of the response of the Saudi authorities to the rogatory commission sent by the Spanish Prosecutor's Office, the public prosecutor maintains that there is no evidence to attribute a crime of corruption in international commercial transactions.

“It can be concluded, therefore, that the elements available after this investigation are clearly insufficient, without incriminating univocity, lacking the necessary connection between them, in part contradictory and, therefore, do not allow to build, even be provisionally, an incriminating thesis that rules out other equally logical alternatives to said thesis”, warns prosecutor Pastor.