His reign had already been tarnished by scandals. His retirement may also be disrupted by business. Former Spanish king Juan Carlos is under investigation for corruption after he was abdicated in 2014, the Spanish Supreme Court announced on June 8.

The ex-monarch is suspected of having received a commission for the concession of a contract of 6.7 billion euros for the construction of a high-speed train between Mecca and Medina to a consortium of Spanish companies . "It would be a possible crime of corruption in international business transactions," said the prosecution.

The Swiss daily Tribune de Genève said in early March that Juan Carlos had received, in 2008, $ 100 million from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, on an account in Switzerland of a Panamanian foundation. In the same month, the daily The Daily Telegraph reported that Felipe VI, the current king and son of Juan Carlos, was also a beneficiary of this foundation.

Mistress, immunity and "exemplarity" 

After the publication of these articles, Felipe VI withdrew from his father an annual endowment from the Royal Palace estimated at more than 194,000 euros per year. Then he announced that he was giving up his father's inheritance "in order to preserve the exemplarity of the Crown". 

The case against her father had been opened in September 2018, following the publication of recordings of the former mistress of Juan Carlos, Corinna Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein where she accused him of corruption. But by virtue of his immunity, only the Supreme Court can seek to identify the responsibility of the former monarch, now 82 years old, and only for acts committed after his abdication.

"The purpose of this investigation is precisely to establish or rule out the relevance (of a criminal prosecution) of the events which occurred after June 2014, the date on which the king emeritus ceased to be protected by inviolability", added the prosecution in a press release.

With AFP 

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