GENEVA, (Reuters) – Geneva’s chief prosecutor said yesterday he had closed a criminal investigation into allegations Spain’s former king Juan Carlos laundered “illegal commission” payments from Saudi Arabia, due to insufficient evidence.
A Swiss private bank involved in the three-year criminal probe was convicted of a reporting failure and fined.
Prosecutor Yves Bertossa said he had established that Saudi Arabia had paid $100 million in August 2008 into an account opened a month before at Mirabaud private bank in the name of a Panamanian foundation whose beneficial owner was Juan Carlos.
But Bertossa said in a statement that he had been unable to prove a sufficient link with a contract awarded three years later to Spanish companies for a high-speed rail connection in Saudi Arabia.
The Spanish royal household declined to comment on the development. Juan Carlos, who is living in exile in the United Arab Emirates, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Through his lawyer, Juan Carlos has previously declined to comment on the various allegations of wrongdoing against him. The former king’s Geneva asset manager was quoted in court documents as testifying that a Saudi ambassador had described the funds as a “pure gift”.
Bertossa said he had opened the criminal investigation in 2018, following news reports that the former king, who abdicated in 2014, may have received “illegal commissions” linked to the contracts and stashed the funds in Swiss accounts.
“The investigation has established that Juan Carlos I did, in fact, receive $100 million on the Lucum foundation account at Mirabaud & Cie SA in Geneva, from the Saudi finance ministry on Aug. 8, 2008,” Bertossa said.
The use of a foundation and offshore accounts by various protagonists in the case had showed a “willingness to dissimulate”, but he had been unable to sufficiently prove the relation between the Saudi payment and the contract for the rail link between Medina and Mecca, he said.
