The praises to the figure of Isabel IIamong others, his total political neutrality as monarch during the 70 years of his reign and the rigid observance of protocol as the best way of devoting himself to his duties, could well oppose the case of the Spanish king emeritus. John Charles I he left the throne and the country covered in shame due to financial and love scandals.
However, both monarchies, the British and the Spanish, have so far managed to avoid accountability in the courts. The dogma “We are all equal before the law”, a pillar of the rule of law, has yet to be proven true in the case of the monarchs and members of the royal families of both states, despite the fact that there have been reasons for some of them to They sit on the bench.
In the case of John Charles I he was not even criminally investigated for money laundering and briberyeven though the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office Spanish found clear evidence of the commission of both crimes. But the inviolability enjoyed by the monarch as head of state between 1975 and 2014 and the prescription of some of the crimes, such as the bribery that implied having received 100 million dollars from the Saudi royal family, closed, in March of this year, the possibility that the king emeritus would face a process criminal, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
This clear impunity, vetoed to any ordinary citizen, constitutes a stale privilege Which is surely hard to get rid of when problems with the law arise within a royal family. And, bridging the gap between the political evolution of the United Kingdom in the last century and the Spanish case, Queen Elizabeth II was no exception.
Last February, an ugly news came out, diminished by the media so as not to cloud the acts of celebration of the 70th anniversary of the reign of Elizabeth II: The monarch paid out of her pocket for the out-of-court agreement to stop the criminal proceedings against her son Andrés for sexual abuse of a minor, in the framework of the Epstein case, on the scandal of trafficking in women and minor prostituted girls and pederasty carried out by the American tycoon Jeffrey Epsteinwho ended up committing suicide in his prison cell.
The British tabloids spoke of an astronomical figure, between 12 and 14 million euros. Isabel II financed with her own patrimony the agreement to avoid a trial against Andrés, Duke of York, and thus leave unpunished a despicable sexual crime against a minor.
The agreement with Virginia Guffre, the woman who denounced the Duke of York for the sexual abuse she suffered as a minor, is a relief for Andrés after his mother’s decision to withdraw the treatment of royal highness in an official capacity. Something similar to what Felipe VI did with his father when he withdrew his official pay when the scandal of the opaque foundations in tax havens transcended.
On the side of the alleged rapist
On sexual crimes related to royal houses, King Juan Carlos I ruled in 2015, siding with the alleged perpetrators. A Spanish-German model denounced in the Spanish courts that in 2008 she was raped on a yacht in Ibiza, after a chemical submission, by the Saudi prince Al Waleed bin Talal.
The case was finally dismissed, but not before the Saudi prince had tried to obtain the help of the Spanish monarch, including the Spanish government. Juan Carlos I sent a letter, through the Spanish Embassy in Riyadh, expressing his “joy” because the Spanish Justice filed the complaint.
Payments from a Turkish banker in exchange for a passport
In addition to the sex scandal, the Duke of York has other hidden dirty laundry that is now beginning to surface. The High Court of London investigates a financial network in which the son of Elizabeth II has come to light. Both he and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, received opaque payments from Selman Turka Turkish banker accused of fraud worth 40 million pounds, who sits on the bench these days.
Andrés would have received in 2019 a payment of 900,000 pounds from a turkish millionaire that she did business with Selman Turk with the aim of receiving help to obtain a British passport to leave her country, where she was being persecuted for political reasons, according to what she declared before the judge.
Turk’s payments to Andrés and Sarah add up to another 700,000 pounds, according to reports, although Queen Elizabeth’s son remains silent and has chosen to return the 900,000 pounds to the allegedly defrauded millionaire whose complaint has led to the ongoing judicial investigation. It must be remembered that the Duke of York previously held the position of UK Special Representative for International Trade and Investment.
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