The widow of José Saramago, River Pillar; the first chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Carlos Jiménez Villarejoand former Supreme Court justices Clement Auger And José Antonio Martin Pallín presented, under the legal direction of the latter, a complaint against King Emeritus Juan Carlos I by five alleged prosecutors. They believe that the regularizations carried out in 2020 and 2021 to legalize the money he had hidden abroad with the Spanish Treasury should not have been admitted.
The complaint was filed as part of a popular action and is also signed by the former Attorney General of Catalonia José María Mena; jurists Javier Pérez Royo, Joaquín Urías, Eduardo Ranz and Blanca Rodríguez Ruiz; the philosopher Santiago Alba and the journalists Josep Ramoneda and Miguel Mora.
“We are moved by defense of the general interest to the extent that we consider that there are crimes against the Public Treasury which violate not only the precepts of the Penal Code but also the principles of equality and solidarity, in addition to enforceable legal and ethical obligations particularly to persons who hold public offices of constitutional importance, in this case the head of state,” the complaint states at the outset.
The plaintiffs request the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court to open a trial against Juan Carlos I as the alleged author of five aggravated tax offenses (by their amount) committed in the years 2014 to 2018 for the money he had in the Swiss accounts of the Lucum Foundation and the funds he received from the Zagatka Foundation.
The complaint requests that in addition to the declaration as investigator of what they call the “honorary king”, Álvaro de Orleans-Borbón, cousin of Juan Carlos I and founder of Zagatka, appear as a witness, among others; the king’s lawyer emeritus, Javier Sánchez Junco; businessman Allen Sanginés, responsible for various expenses; Arturo Fasana and Dante Canónica, creators of the Lucum structure, and Nicolás Murga, personal assistant of Don Juan Carlos.
“Inappropriate” regularization
The plaintiffs maintain that the effects of the regularization of the tax situation carried out by the Emeritus King “were unduly applied, since the legal requirements provided for the excuse of acquittal that a correct regularization implies cannot be applied.”
On December 9, 2020, Juan Carlos de Borbón legalized donations worth more than 800,000 euros received from Anglo-Mexican businessman Allen Sanginés-Krause between 2017 and 2019 by presenting to the General Directorate of Taxes of the Community of Madrid a “declaration” document. out of time without prior request.” He settled a tax debt of 678,393.72 euros, interest and surcharges included.
In February 2021, he made a second regularization for the payment of flights and private trips with funds from the Zagatka Foundation, created by his cousin, Álvaro de Orleans-Borbón.
They explain that the first regularization “is carried out seven months after the first notification from the Prosecutor’s Office and one month after the second notification, that is to say when there was already evidence of the existence of the open investigation procedure. by the Prosecutor’s Office. Court”.
This knowledge would prevent regularization from being taken into account with absolute effects, they say.
This the case has already been handled by the prosecutor’s office of the Supreme Court and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office when they initiated the procedure without initiating criminal proceedings against Juan Carlos I. They recognized that the regularization had been carried out on time, because the notifications did not indicate the facts making the subject of an investigation.
For the plaintiffs, “the Prosecutor’s argument is absolutely artificial, devoid of legal basis and clashes head-on with the temporary data contained in his own” archival document. And he maintains that the decriminalizing effects of the excuse of acquittal must be ruled out “if it is regularized after having had formal knowledge, not necessarily detailed, of the opening of the procedure”.
