Former Spanish King Appears To Flee Country [VIDEO]

The BBC reports:

Spain’s former King Juan Carlos has left the country for an unknown destination, weeks after he was linked to an inquiry into alleged corruption. Juan Carlos, 82, announced the move on Monday in a letter to his son, Felipe, to whom he handed power six years ago.

He said he would be available if prosecutors needed to interview him. In June, Spain’s Supreme Court opened an investigation into the alleged involvement of Juan Carlos in a high-speed rail contract in Saudi Arabia.

The former king had most likely already left when the letter was released on Monday, Spain’s El País newspaper reports. It is unclear where Juan Carlos is, though some Spanish media report he is in the Dominican Republic.

The New York Times reports:

The departure of Juan Carlos follows recent efforts by his son to distance himself from his father’s activities. In March, King Felipe VI renounced his personal inheritance from his father, and also stripped his father of his stipend, amid a money laundering investigation launched by a Swiss prosecutor and focused on two separate offshore foundations.

One of the foundations being investigated, Zagatka, was registered in Liechtenstein and set up by Álvaro de Orleans-Borbón, a cousin of Juan Carlos. Prosecutors are trying to determine how the foundation came to accumulate its sizable wealth and why it moved money between undeclared bank accounts.

The other foundation, the Panama-based Lucum, received $100 million from Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors are now trying to establish whether this money was somehow connected to the awarding of a contract that Spanish companies won to build a high-speed rail link between the Saudi cities of Medina and Mecca.