Although all judicial investigations against the 84-year-old former monarch were closed in March, the numerous revelations about the unclear origin of his fortune seriously damaged his image and that of the monarchy in Spain, appreciated until then for its role in the transition to democracy after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
Although the president of the Spanish Government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, maintained discretion on the return, He opposed Juan Carlos I spending the night at the Zarzuela Palace in Madrid, as it is an official residence, and finally he will sleep at a friend’s house in Sanxenxo.
The minority partner of the government coalition, the leftist party Canlamented in a message on Twitter that “the monarchy is an institution designed to commit crimes” and “Justice is not the same for everyone.”
The conservative opposition, meanwhile, defended the trip.
“The king emeritus has no pending cases in his country and he has every right to visit or return to Spain,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), said on Tuesday.
For its part, the newspaper El País maintained, in its editorial today, that “there is no longer any legal or juridical reason that prevents the emeritus king from traveling to Spain, but there is a trail of ethical reasons that explain the stir that has caused the news”.
The Spanish Crown has been marred in recent years by various scandals.
The revelations about the fortune of Juan Carlos I were joined by other matters, including a trip to hunt elephants in Africa with his lover Corinna Larsen in 2012, in the midst of an economic crisis, which was discovered by accident and for which he apologized. .
Also, his son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarinwas sentenced in 2017 to 6 years in prison for the illegal businesses he carried out at the head of the foundation he headed, in a trial in which his daughter, the infanta Cristina, also sat on the defendant’s bench, finally sentenced to pay a fine.
The most important of the three investigations opened by the prosecution against Juan Carlos I sought to determine whether he charged commissions for the award to two Spanish companies of a contract for the construction of a high-speed train between Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia, in 2011.
A 2008 transfer of $100 million by the king of Saudi Arabia to a Swiss account of which he was the beneficiary aroused suspicion, but prosecutors concluded it was “a gift.”
In 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated in his son, and justified his exile in Abu Dhabi in the need to “facilitate” Felipe VI’s work.
The king recently tried to distance himself from his father and in March 2020 he renounced his inheritance and withdrew his annual allocation of almost 200,000 euros.
More recently, at the end of April, he launched, with the Sánchez government, a “transparency” operation in the Royal House, which must now audit its accounts, make its contracts public and make an inventory of the gifts received.
Source: Ambito
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