Immunity claim rejected: former Spanish king could face court in UK

The High Court of England and Wales has rejected former king of Spain Juan Carlos’ immunity, arguing he is no longer a “sovereign or head of state” following his abdication in 2014. After this first ruling, the court will now move forward with the former king’s ex-lover Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein’s harassment allegations.

“If the case goes further, the Defendant will have an opportunity to defend the claims made against him and, ultimately, the Court will hear evidence and make a decision after a trial,” the ruling reads. The claim is based on alleged harassment by King Juan Carlos, such as surveillance at the hands of Spanish National Intelligence Agency (CNI) agents, Sayn-Wittgenstein said in June 2021 when she filed the complaint with the English and Welsh court.

The ex-lover also stated that, since 2012, she had been suffering threats, libel, and forced her into depression that isolated her from her kids, friends, and business partners. The defendant, Juan Carlos I, cited his immunity as a sovereign and belonging to current Spain King Felipe VI’s household to evade scrutiny, but the court rejected his status.

International law

“The fact that the Defendant has been accorded a special constitutional status in Spain does not make him a sovereign,” the ruling reads. “Since he abdicated in 2014, the Defendant is not the head of state of Spain,” the court stated. One of the examples the court uses to deny former king Juan Carlos’ immunity is robbery.

If the defense lawyers’ arguments were true, it would mean that “if tomorrow, the Defendant were to walk into a jewelers’ shop in Hatton Garden and steal a diamond ring, he could face no civil or criminal proceedings in this jurisdiction (unless the Spanish state waived his immunity). Nothing in the principles of international law or respect for the dignity and sovereignty of the Spanish state compels such a conclusion,” the ruling reads.

The former king ex-lover Corrina is well-known in Spain and in Catalonia when relating the monarch to corruption scandals. In March 2020, a Swiss newspaper reported that former king Juan Carlos had allegedly received a $100-million “gift” from his Saudi counterpart, as well as offshore funds in the Bahamas and Lichtenstein. The “gift” was given for the awarding contracts to companies to build a high-speed train line to Mecca. This information was published two years after the monarch had left Spain to travel to Abu Dhabi, where he remains.

Letter to the king

In fact, on 7 March 2022 the Spanish monarchy published a letter from Juan Carlos to his son, King Felipe VI, his desire to live in the Arab country but to return to Spain for visits. The letter was sent a few days after the Spanish Supreme Court prosecution dropped its investigation on the Mecca trains commission. Another investigation now closed relates to how his family had expenses paid by a Mexican businessman, while prosecutors were also scrutinizing secret bank accounts in Switzerland.

The public ministry admitted that the former head of state defrauded the Spanish tax agency, but said that the crimes would be inviolable according to the Constitution, and thus dropped all cases against the former monarch.