The judge rejects charging Zapatero for embezzlement for the jewels of Saudi Arabia

MadridBreathing room for José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the National Court. The judge who is investigating the Plus Ultra case has refused to charge him also with embezzlement –he is charged for tax crime and smuggling– for the jewels that were gifted to him by the king of Saudi Arabia in 2007.It was a request formulated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and that he rebutted claiming that they were a “strictly personal” gift. José Luis Calama argues that the law which “expressly established” that senior officials could not accept gifts that “exceed social or courtesy customs” and that relevant gifts should be incorporated into the public heritage was approved in 2013. Therefore, it was not in force at the time of the events and cannot be used to criminally punish the former Spanish president.

In a seven-page interlocutory order, the magistrate maintains that charging Zapatero with embezzlement would be to fall into an “unforeseeable and expansive interpretation” of the crime, “extending the notion of public property” to a “case not contemplated by the legislator” in 2007. “He could not reasonably know that the appropriation of the asset could constitute a crime of embezzlement,” he adds. And he refers to the Constitution, which recognizes the fundamental right “not to be convicted” for “actions that at the time of occurring do not constitute a crime.” For all these reasons, the judge believes that the Prosecutor's Office's thesis is an “interpretative construction elaborated ex post” because at that time “no legal provision required” that he return the jewels and it cannot be stated that they “constituted public heritage” by the “mere circumstance” that he had received them at Moncloa as president of the Spanish government.

José Luis Calama does admit that having kept them could “give rise to ethical or political reproaches.” He argues that the Code of Good Governance approved by the Council of Ministers in 2005 constituted an “institutional self-regulation,” but did not have enough force to expand the perimeter of the crime of embezzlement. “Admitting the opposite would mean turning patterns of conduct into authentic sources of criminal incrimination,” he concludes.

Paralysis of Tax Agency inspections

In another interlocutory order, José Luis Calama has decided to halt the inspections opened months ago by the Tax Agency regarding Zapatero, his wife and his daughters –María Sonsoles Espinosa, Laura Rodríguez and Alba Rodríguez– and his friend Julio Martínez Martínez. In July, the former Spanish president requested it and the judge dismissed it, but now he admits that the circumstances have changed and that it is advisable to stop them. He justifies that the simultaneity of both proceedings has caused a “practical incompatibility” that “seriously compromises” and “decisively conditions” the “usefulness and purpose” of the Treasury inspections.

The reason is that all of those under investigation have shown a “generalized refusal” to “provide any documentation” to the Treasury that is related to the case currently open at the National Court. Given this, the judge wants to avoid the Tax Agency “being forced to conclude” the inspections without having an “essential and substantial” part of the information it needs. Furthermore, with this decision, he interrupts the prescription deadlines and suspends the count of the maximum duration of the inspection so that the Treasury “is not prejudiced” by having to wait for the criminal case to conclude.