The Prosecutor’s Office extends the investigation of King Juan Carlos I for six more months

  • The extension of the investigations is justified by the lack of certain documentation on 2015 that Switzerland has yet to send.

  • The extension until June 2022 does not have to run out, and the filing of the proceedings could take place in January.

The state attorney general, Dolores Delgado, has signed this Thursday the decree that allows to extend for six months, until June 2022, the criminal proceedings opened against the emeritus king Juan Carlos I by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court, according to tax sources have advanced to ‘El Periódico de España’. The signature takes place a few days before December 17, the day on which the six months to investigate one of the three cases opened to the former monarch by the high court prosecutors, who have requested and justified an extension of the investigations, expired.

A few days ago, sources from the Public Ministry pointed out this possibility of an extension and pointed to January as the most suitable date to file the proceedings, a decision that has already been adopted but will now be postponed for a week. This will also allow drive away the impact that will undoubtedly have this news of King Felipe VI’s Christmas Eve speech, which will take place just a few days later.

The reason for the extension is, in any case, of a technical nature, and has to do with pending documentation of the letter rogatory sent to Switzerland, who has yet to deliver some data relative to the year 2015. Although the researchers do not expect much news from these documents, they have preferred to wait for all the information that it was requested and they have asked the attorney general to extend the proceedings, since she is empowered to do so.

As reported by this newspaper from Prensa Ibérica, The department headed by Dolores Delgado adopted at the beginning of autumn the decision to archive the three investigation procedures open to King Emeritus Juan Carlos I, and did so without having thoroughly analyzed the information on possible criminal movements, given that at that time The aforementioned documentation to be sent by Switzerland was missing.

Four possible crimes

In the information claim documents that have been sent to Switzerland and other countries, there are up to four crimes attributable to the emeritus, which are the money laundering, against public finances, bribery and influence peddling.

In relation to these possible criminal responsibilities, there are three investigative measures that, with preprocessional character, are kept open with respect to the emeritus king. The first were those initiated in 2018 by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, due to the alleged collection of almost 65 million in commissions for the construction of the AVE to Mecca.

Later, with the matter in charge of the team of Supreme Court prosecutors, another two were opened, due to the alleged use by Juan Carlos I and other relatives of opaque credit cards charged to accounts in which they are not listed as holders; and by the existence of a has 10 million euros in the name of the former head of state on the island of Jersey, a tax haven

The investigation procedures opened by the Prosecutor’s Offices have a duration of six months – less those of Anti-Corruption, which are one year -, a period that can be successively extended for another six months if it is considered appropriate, but that it does not have to be exhausted. For this reason, the sources consulted already ventured a few weeks ago that there would be no problem in extending the proceedings in December, as has happened, for archive a few weeks later.

Five million paid to the Treasury

Among other reasons, to justify the future filing of this investigation, it is argued that some of the alleged crimes attributed to the former monarch would have occurred when Juan Carlos I was criminally irresponsible before his abdication in 2014; that others would have prescribed and that there is a lack of evidentiary weight to which have been added two tax regularizations for about 5 million euros that close the door to attribute the commission of tax crimes.

Both regularizations with the Treasury recognized by the defense of Juan Carlos I have been for a total of 678,393.72 at the end of 2020 and another 4,395,901.96 euros last February, respectively. The first for what he would have stopped paying in taxes corresponding to the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and the second for the 8 million euros that Juan Carlos I received during several years on flights from a private jet company paid until 2018 by the Zagatka foundation, owned by his distant cousin Álvaro de Orleans.

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The regularizations could have been possible because the team of prosecutors from the High Court investigating the emeritus had notified the former monarch’s lawyer that they had ‘revealed evidence’ against his client.

He was also indicated the number of the three open investigation proceedings, but without specifying any other information, which allows according to his defense, exercised by Javier Sánchez-Junco, apply the Article 304 of the Penal Code which indicates that the regularizations are considered good as long as they are paid before there are judicial or fiscal actions for the defrauded.

Reference-www.elperiodico.com

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