Spain Drops Criminal Probe Into Ex-King’s Juan Carlos’s Wealth

(Bloomberg) -- Spain shelved a criminal investigation into the conduct of former King Juan Carlos I, who left his country in 2020 after a flurry of scandals about the origins of his personal wealth.

A lawyer representing the former King said in a statement they will study the decision and lay out any steps Juan Carlos could take next week.

The Supreme Court prosecutor halted the probe because some of the alleged crimes were too far in the past while others occurred when Juan Carlos had constitutional protection as head of state, according to a court statement cited by newspaper El Mundo. The prosecutor also said he had settled his tax bills with the tax agency and there's a lack of evidence in other cases being investigated, the newspaper said.

The end of the probe, which could pave the way for Juan Carlos to return from self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi, where he has been living since he left Spain, may spark anger at home. The ruling left-wing coalition's minority partner, Podemos, has demanded the monarchy be abolished while the main opposition group, the conservative People's Party, says it remains a pillar for the country.

Once revered for successfully steering Spain from dictatorship to democracy, Juan Carlos fell into disgrace in the final years of his near four-decade rule after he was embroiled is a series of scandals about his conduct and personal finances. He abdicated the throne to his son Felipe in 2014 in an attempt to clean the monarchy's tarnished image.

His legal problems continued, though, with prosecutors launching an investigation in 2020 to determine whether Juan Carlos could be pursued for possible crimes linked to a high-speed train contract in Saudi Arabia won by a Spanish-Saudi consortium.

In December, Geneva prosecutors closed a probe into five people suspected of money laundering in a case that looked at donations by the late king of Saudi Arabia to fellow royal Juan Carlos.