A legal case seeking €145 million (£126 million) brought by Danish businesswoman Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn against Spain's former King Juan Carlos has been dismissed by a London
court.
Corinna had accused Juan Carlos of orchestrating a campaign of harassment against her after their relationship ended in 2012. She claimed that the harassment, which included spying and break-ins, began when she declined to return millions of pounds worth of gifts from the former king.
Juan Carlos vehemently denied the allegations.
The ruling, issued on Friday by a judge, declared that the High Court of England and Wales lacked jurisdiction over the case. However, the judge did not make any judgment on the merits of the allegations.
Furthermore, Judge Rowena Collins Rice stated that Ms. zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, a British citizen, had not sufficiently demonstrated that the alleged "harmful event" of harassment by the defendant occurred in England.
A spokesperson for the 85-year-old former monarch characterized Friday's decision as unsurprising and affirmed Juan Carlos's innocence. The spokesperson also suggested that the ruling restored the conditions necessary for the former king to make further public appearances.
In response to the ruling, Ms. zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, who initiated the harassment case in 2020, expressed deep disappointment and conveyed her view that it was disheartening to witness harassment victims often struggling to attain justice within the legal system.
Prior to this decision, UK judges had ruled in December that she could not sue the former king for allegations related to his time as sovereign, as he enjoyed immunity while serving as king.
The allegations centered around claims that Juan Carlos pressured Ms. zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn to return gifts worth €65 million following their relationship's dissolution. The controversy surrounding the former couple escalated after their widely publicized elephant-hunting trip to Botswana in 2012. The trip, during which Juan Carlos sustained an injury and had to be flown home, sparked public outrage amid Spain's financial crisis and record unemployment rates.
Juan Carlos is renowned for overseeing Spain's transition from dictatorship to democracy in 1975. However, he abdicated the throne in 2014 due to a series of scandals involving his family, including a corruption investigation into his daughter's husband, Inaki Urdangarin, who was subsequently imprisoned.
Since 2020, the former king has mostly resided in exile in the United Arab Emirates, having left Spain amidst allegations of fraud, which were later dropped. A Swiss investigation into a multi-million dollar payment from Saudi Arabia was also closed due to insufficient evidence. Photo by Andrus_Ansip,_Juan_Carlos_I.jpg: Estonian Foreign Ministry, Wikimedia commons.
