Zapatero is still being vague about the Plus Ultra case

Since last May, former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been promising to explain the origin of the jewellery that the police found during a search of his office. The story is well known: the authorities are investigating the suspicious bailout of a Spanish-Venezuelan airline, Plus Ultra, which is alleged to have concealed money-laundering operations for which Zapatero is said to have received a bribe; however, during the search, a safe was discovered to which the former Prime Minister’s secretary claims not to have the key. However, the key turns up just as the police seem set to call in the bomb disposal unit.

A treasure trove, already valued at over 1.3 million euros, has emerged from the safe. Initially, Zapatero had claimed that it consisted of jewellery bequeathed by his mother-in-law to his wife, worth no more than 50,000 euros in total. He later admitted that it also contained gifts received from Saudi Arabia, which had been placed there alongside his mother-in-law’s jewellery without him knowing exactly how much they were worth. In recent days, Judge Calama—who is investigating the Plus Ultra case and has since opened a separate line of inquiry into the jewellery (for which Zapatero could even face charges of smuggling)—has given the suspect three days to hand over, once and for all, the necessary documentation to clarify the origin of that treasure. Meanwhile, he has commissioned another historic Madrid jeweller, Yanes, to carry out a second valuation.

Once again, however, Zapatero seemed far too terse and vague in his explanations. On Wednesday, he submitted a written statement in which he claimed that the most valuable items were a gift, a ‘personal gesture’ from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The king, whom Zapatero received on an official visit to Madrid in June 2007, died in 2015 and can therefore no longer speak, but it seems that so far no one in Riyadh has been willing to speak out. The former Spanish Prime Minister claims to have contacted the Saudis twice, in June and August, to obtain confirmation of his version of events from the Head of Protocol at the Royal Household, but he never received a reply. The suspect is therefore now asking the judge to issue an international letter of request.

If the gift was personal and was delivered in Madrid, Zapatero would, in one fell swoop, dodge the charge of smuggling and avoid tax evasion thanks to the statute of limitations. But so far, he has done nothing but ask the investigators and the public to take his word for it. On the established facts – the existence of the jewellery, the value of which should at least have been declared to the tax authorities – Zapatero stammers. As for the facts yet to be established – such as the receipt of a 1 per cent bribe on the 53 million euros lent by the Spanish government to the unknown company Plus Ultra, designated as a strategic national asset – Zapatero categorically denies them, but so far he has merely sought, unsuccessfully, to have the entire proceedings declared null and void.

The application for annulment was rejected in early September and the judge set a number of key dates for the continuation of the investigation. On 19 November, Félix Martín, former financial director of Plus Ultra, and José Ángel Partearroyo, a former senior executive at SEPI – the company that oversees Spanish state holdings and is therefore closely linked to the Sánchez government and its economic ministries in particular – will be heard. Above all, however, the judge has finally set 30 November as the date for the questioning of Zapatero’s daughters, Alba and Laura Rodríguez.

They are also under investigation in the Plus Ultra case as owners of a company with the strange name, Whathefav, whose activities are even stranger and more suspicious. They merely formatted the trite and brief consultancy reports drafted by their father for the companies of their friend Julito Martínez, whom several witnesses (including the man himself) describe as a mere front man for Zapatero. For three years, Whathefav received bank transfers from Martínez’s companies totalling at least 240,000 euros. According to investigators, this is where the triangle linking Spain and Venezuela – with the former prime minister at its apex – comes to an end. Whilst he invokes the dead (his mother-in-law, King Abdullah) when it comes to jewellery, it is the money that appears to have landed his children in trouble. According to some observers, it is precisely because of the risks faced by his daughters that he will eventually agree to speak out. It will not be the proud political leader – who used to declare at rallies that being a socialist means giving, not taking – who gives in, but the anxious father.