Corinna sues Juan Carlos of Spain: “He spies and threatens me”

Corinna Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein has no intention of giving up what she believes is due to her on the part of her former lover, former King of Spain Juan Carlos. The woman, who met the sovereign on a hunting trip in England, where she lives, has launched a trial in the High Court of the British capital claiming that the king illegally monitored her in the United Kingdom. According to press reports, she is asking for indefinite compensation – several million euros – and a restrictive injunction against Juan Carlos and the Spanish secret services.

According to the Financial Times, she filled the appeal as early as last December (but the news has only just come out). The first step for the London court will be to consider the jurisdiction of the case, given that Juan Carlos did not live in Britain and was the ruler of another country. His legal team has not yet replied to the accusations. However, the king has made it known that he considers himself innocent and has not adopted any illegal attitude towards Corinna.

According to the reconstruction provided to the High Court, however, Sayn-Wittgenstein was the victim of not indifferent abuses “from 2012 to today”, including threats, defamation, and devious and blatant surveillance by agents sent by the king and by the Spanish secret services.

At the center of the case, a payment of 65 million euros was made to Corinna by Juan Carlos in 2012 using Abdullah, king of Saudi Arabia (who died in 2015). Juan Carlos, according to Corinna, had arranged the payment because he wanted to make sure that she and her children had a living. She feared that his family would contest any leftover to her in her favor after his death.

Sometime later, however, Juan Carlos would have asked for the restitution of the funds. When Corinna refused, the king accused her of having stolen the money. He spread rumors among her family and among her collaborators and the Saudi royal family: defamation that would have resulted in a severe economic and professional loss for Sayn. -Wittgenstein, who by profession is a strategic consultant for industrial and financial groups and high-income individuals. The request for compensation is centered on the professional aspect. But she has more.

The relationship conclusion between Corinna and Juan Carlos in 2009 did not end threats. That is why Sayn-Wittgenstein asks the High Court for an injunction preventing the king, and whoever for him, from getting closer than 150 meters from her homes.

Corinna would have feared for her safety: she claims that the Spanish National Intelligence Center and the then director, Felix Sanz Roldan, kept her under surveillance, crossing the limits of her property and monitoring her computer and telephone. Juan Carlos, in no uncertain terms, would have told her that if he had not done what he asked her, “the consequences would not have been good for her.” In contrast, in 2012, during a meeting in London, Sanz Roldan would have announced that “he could not guarantee her physical safety and that of the children.”

The London lawsuit is just the latest scandal to involve Juan Carlos. Despite having abdicated in favor of his son Felipe in 2014 remains a cumbersome presence in a royal family in search of stability and popularity. Last year, the former sovereign left Spain for Abu Dhabi when the Spanish Supreme Court launched an investigation into alleged bribes on a high-speed train project.