Almost five months after selling-filtering, in the late afternoon of October 5, 2021, the skin of the exoneration of John Charles Ithe state attorney general, Dolores Delgadofinally hunted the bear yesterday and signed the three decrees that file the investigation proceedings on the alleged illegal acts of the current king emeritus.
It is attributed to the Prussian military historian Carl von Clausewitz (1792-1831), famous for considering that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”, the concept of “fog of war”: the confusion that hinders operations during a warlike conflict. Its use has also been extended to the idea of a smoke screen, perhaps because it originally referred to the smoke caused by the firing of muskets or the dust from cavalry charges.
John Charles I He has been exonerated and begins his return to Madrid because, precisely, he had been waiting since the beginning of October for the investigation proceedings to be filed. He was in Abu Dhabi “Hoping that Doña Dolores will decide to close the case,” she wrote in a message on her 84th birthday, January 5, 2022.
Is that the so-called occurrence of Doña Doloresthe attorney general was in turn pending the inspectors of the National Fraud Inspection Organization (ONIF), who have finished the tuning to validate the two tax adjustments presented by Juan Carlos I for just over 5 million euros.
three jurisdictions
The investigations, then, in two criminal jurisdictions (Switzerlandon December 13 last, and Spain this Wednesday) have been archived. A third investigation remains in the civil jurisdiction of the United Kingdomfollowing a lawsuit for harassment, illegal monitoring and defamation that his ex-lover filed against him at the end of December 2020 Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein.
Judge Matthew Nicklinof the High Court of Justice in England and Wales, has to rule on a preliminary issue: the immunity that he has invoked the defense of Juan Carlos I. If he admits it, the procedure would be automatically filed; but if he denies it, he would enter the investigation, with the contribution of evidence, before proceeding to trial.
The road to the folder
The investigative proceedings in Spain went through three phases. The first, judicial, with two judges from the National High Court who deactivated –rather than investigated– the events, despite the fact that the Geneva prosecutor, Yves Bertosahad already started the investigation based on the audio leaked in Spain by the retired commissioner Joseph Villarejo.
In September 2018, one of the judges required, on the 4th of that month, the Tax agency for rights and accounts of Juan Carlos I abroad, and received a summary response within 24 hours, on September 5. The National Fraud Investigation Organization (ONIF) lacked data.
The tax inspectors did not think of opening a tax Inspectorate to Juan Carlos I despite the news that filled pages in the newspapers and programs on radio and television. And if they missed it, they didn’t.
The key to adjustments
This sequence is still interesting. Because in the decree filing the proceedings, the State Attorney General indicates that in the notifications made to Juan Carlos I about the opening of the investigations in the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office “reference was made to the facts to which the tax returns carried out on February 2 and 3, 2021 by Juan Carlos of Bourbonfor the simple reason that at that time the circumstances to which they refer were unknown”.
If, in light of the river of information that has flowed since that September 4, 2018, an inspection had been opened — what less when talking about 100 million dollars or €64.8 million Received by Juan Carlos I in an account of the Panamanian foundation Lucum, of which he was the beneficiary, in Geneva?–, those circumstances, which the Treasury claims to be unaware of, could have surfaced.
“The Prosecutor’s Office had no evidence of non-compliance with the tax obligationsbehavior that has subsequently been outlined after the analysis of the actions carried out and, particularly, after the tax declarations made by the representation of John Charles I“, says the decree of the attorney general.
Spontaneity?
Supreme Prosecutor Lieutenant John Ignatius Fieldsin charge of the investigations, notified Juan Carlos I of the three open investigations and offered his lawyer, Javier Sanchez-Junco, appear in them. But he had no answer beyond the reception of the offer. Because everything was calculated: the regularizations had to be, according to the law, “spontaneous”. If the lawyer appeared, he would no longer be able to argue spontaneity. And what was he going to show up for? Juan Carlos I did know why he was being investigated. But not only because he was aware of it through his lawyer in Switzerland, Dante Canonicabut by the media.
Sight tests: the most important regularization, for almost €4.4 millionHe did it without any notification.
He was never informed from the Prosecutor’s Office, as it was in the other three proceedings (AVE Medina-Mecca; transfers from your Mexican friend Allen Sanginés-Krause and trust in the tax haven of Jersey) on proceedings relating to payments of almost 7 million euros from the Zagatka Foundation to private jet companies for Juan Carlos I’s trips after he abdicated on June 18, 2014. And yet, both because of the knowledge of the proceedings in Switzerland, where Alvaro of Orleanshis distant cousin, the first beneficiary of the Zagatka (‘enigma’, in Russian) foundation, declared in October 2018, as per the Swiss and Spanish press, his advisers advised him to file a regularization.
Cascade tuning
It has been a cascade tuning. On the one hand, by the application of the prescription; on the other, because Juan Carlos I was inviolable until his abdication on June 18, 2014, and also, because the Treasury “was unaware” of the alleged irregularities.
Some €77 million approximately of funds circulated through the hands of Juan Carlos I abroad, outside the tentacles of the Treasury.
Related news
Juan Carlos I needs to return to Madrid, albeit temporarily. One of the reasons, but not the only one, is the photo with his son, the king Philip VI. Because the ruling in the United Kingdom is still pending on whether to grant or reject the immunity that she has requested in the face of the demand of her ex-lover Corinna.
And Juan Carlos I and his advisers understand that this photo, that of an emeritus reintegrated into the royal family after his self-banishment in Abu Dhabi from August 4, 2020, it may be the coup de grace against Corinna.