A bottle of vodka, a prison brick, and two horse saddles: all the gifts that Zapatero gave when he left the presidency

MadridHugo Chávez, when he was president of Venezuela, gave José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero a replica of Simón Bolívar's sword and a brass figure of Don Quixote –in fact, the former Spanish president received five sculptures of the Spanish literary icon made of iron, bronze, wood, and papier-mâché during his years at the Moncloa–. When he was president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev gave him a decorated bottle of vodka and a machete with a leather sheath. From the United States, Barack Obama opted for more formal gifts: an official White House Christmas ornament and a leather folder with a reproduction of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address. Zapatero declared more than 300 gifts he received as president, but he forgot some, starting with the jewelry that the police found in a safe in his office.

A few weeks ago, the former Spanish president said that the twelve most valuable pieces were a gift that the King of Saudi Arabia had given him in June 2007 during a trip to Madrid. Zapatero explained that he had accepted the gift out of “deference” and as a “sign of gratitude and respect,” and that the jewelry had “no use or destination.” But now José Luis Calama distrusts the former president's alibi, reproaching him for a “total absence of accreditation” for what he says, because he has not provided any “objective corroborating element” to prove it –beyond two letters he himself sent to the head of protocol of the Saudi Arabian royal court– and because he “has not traveled personally” to collect the evidence. And he blocks the rogatory commission that Zapatero had requested because he does not see “either its utility, its necessity, or its relevance.”

To follow his trail, the judge asked the State Protocol Office for the document that gathers all the presents and gifts that Zapatero received as president –from 2004 to 2011– and that he handed over when he left the Moncloa to be incorporated into the heritage of the General State Administration. However, in the complete 31-page list, to which ARA has had access, no jewelry appears. Nor from the King of Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, there is a gold table clock with emeralds that the Saudi monarch gave him that same day. And another table clock and a gold and silver figure that the Saudi monarchy gave him in the summer of 2008. There is also a silver jewelry box from the president of Caja Granada.

The contradiction between Zapatero's statement and the list of gifts led the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to request that the former president also be charged with embezzlement. “We are facing an alleged act of misappropriation of public funds,” it justified a few days ago. Now the judge anticipates that he will “agree” to this in a “separate resolution” and tells Zapatero –who said that he had no “awareness of the material value” of the jewels– that “any observer lacking specialized knowledge” would have known how to see that they had a “notable economic value”.

A long list of gifts

The top leaders of other countries also resorted to different offerings, which were indeed declared by Zapatero. Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel) chose the figure of a blue dove; Manmohan Singh (India) gifted him two silver elephants; Evo Morales (Bolivia) opted for two figures of indigenous people carved in wood; Álvaro Uribe (Colombia) chose a handmade hat and Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey) gifted him a Turkish national football team jersey signed by all the players.

It is clear that there have been gifts of all kinds. Muammar al-Gaddafi (Libya) and Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria) coincided, a year apart, in gifting him a horse saddle; Vladimir Putin (Russia) gifted him a pen drawing with a view of the Kremlin, and Silvio Berlusconi (Italy) presented him with a sculpture made of bronze, marble, gold, and silver on the occasion of the European Constitution Treaty, with the misfortune that it “arrived broken”.

The president of the State Society for Penitentiary Infrastructures and State Security opted for a brick from the demolition of the Carabanchel prison; Adif chose a piece of rock from a railway tunnel in Pajares (Asturias) and Martín Torrijos (Panama) brought him a rock fragment from the Panama Canal extracted during the first dry excavation in the Pacific zone. Zapatero also received a reproduction of a 500-euro bill on a gold sheet, a gala tricorn hat of the Civil Guard, a figure with a bull's face, two ceramic beer mugs –from Mahou– and a wooden sword.

Gifts from Catalonia

There have also been gifts with a Catalan accent. The then mayor of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Celestino Corbacho, gave him a commemorative plaque of the AVE works between Madrid and Barcelona, and the president of the Circuit de Catalunya, a painting of the Circuit. Anna Pagans, as mayor of Girona, presented him with a terracotta sculpture of Saint George, and the Port of Barcelona, with an engraving of the lighthouse of the Medes Islands.