‘There’s only one king’: Spain’s Juan Carlos stripped of immunity
Madrid: Former Spanish king Juan Carlos does not have the right to sovereign immunity, the High Court ruled yesterday, meaning he could now face trial in a British court over allegations he caused a former lover “great mental pain” by spying on and harassing her.
Justice Matthew Nicklin rejected Juan Carlos’s claim that his status as a senior member of the Spanish royal family meant he could not be sued by Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, ruling that the civil claim could go ahead.
Spanish emiritus king Juan Carlos and Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein attend the Laureus Sports Awards 2006 at Parc del Forum in Barcelona.Credit:Getty
Sayn-Wittgenstein, a 57-year-old Danish businesswoman, who is a resident of Monaco and has homes in London and Shropshire, has accused Juan Carlos and agents of the Spanish state of mounting a continuous campaign of intimidation against her after their relationship ended in 2009.
According to her claim, the pair stayed close friends for a period after their break-up, but after she declined his attempts to rekindle their relationship he became hostile and demanded that she return €65 million ($95 million) he had “donated” to her in 2012.
She claims to have received death threats from agents of Spain’s CNI secret service, as well as allegedly being subjected to continual surveillance and the victim of a whispering campaign that destroyed her reputation as an international business consultant.
In court documents filed in 2020, she claims two of her apartments were broken into and the book Princess Diana: the Hidden Evidence, How MI6 and the CIA Were Involved in the Death of Princess Diana was left on a coffee table.
Spain’s former King Juan Carlos in 2019.Credit:AP
Sayn-Wittgenstein also alleges a “perfectly drilled hole” was discovered in the bedroom window of her private estate, Chyknell Hall, in Shropshire, where she lives with her son.
Lawyers for the former monarch, who denies any wrongdoing, had previously argued that a 300-year-old treaty that established Gibraltar as a British territory, known as the Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht, protected him in a British court.
But on Thursday the judge, whose ruling focused on the issue of immunity only, said he rejected an argument that Juan Carlos remained a “sovereign” and was entitled to personal immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978.
“There is only one king of Spain and head of state of Spain and since June 19, 2014 that has been his son, King Felipe VI,” the judge said.
Juan Carlos, 84, abdicated after a series of scandals affecting him and the Spanish royal family.
In 2020, he left Madrid to live in Abu Dhabi after Spain’s public prosecution service opened an investigation into alleged financial impropriety and use of secret accounts in offshore tax havens. Juan Carlos’s lawyers claimed that their client enjoyed immunity for any actions before his abdication as head of state, and was covered after 2014 by his status as emeritus king and a member of the household of the current Spanish monarch, Felipe VI.
The judge found that Juan Carlos ceased to be sovereign when he abdicated, despite the “honorary” use of the term emeritus king in Spain, and that he was no longer a member of Felipe VI’s royal household as he did not perform public duties and had moved to the UAE.
The judge said that if he had accepted Juan Carlos’s claim to sovereign status, “it would mean that if, tomorrow, [he] were to walk into a jeweller’s shop in Hatton Garden and steal a diamond ring, he could face no civil or criminal proceedings in this jurisdiction”.
Juan Carlos’s Spanish legal adviser declined to comment on the decision, but the former monarch is expected to appeal against the decision next week.
The Telegraph, London
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