Zapatero tells the judge that the jewels are a gift from the King of Saudi Arabia from 2007

Madrid / BarcelonaJosé Luis Rodríguez Zapatero gives new details about the controversial jewels located in his office within the framework of the Plus Ultra case investigation. After the judge gave him three days on Monday to clarify the details regarding their origin, the former Spanish president stated that some of the items are a gift that the King of Saudi Arabia Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud -who died eleven years ago- gave him in June 2007, during his first term at the head of the Spanish government. In this regard, he requests that the cooperation of the Saudi monarchy be sought to certify his version.

This is stated in a document sent to the National Court magistrate José Luis Calama, reported by El País and to which ARA has had access. Until now, Zapatero had limited himself to saying that some of the jewels were family inheritances and that the others, corresponded to "a courtesy gift from many, many years ago", but without specifying its origin. All of this, after the expert report that the judge commissioned estimates the set of pieces at 1.3 million euros, a figure that Zapatero does not recognize.

According to the document submitted to the judge by his defense, the gifted jewels were "a strictly personal attention, accepted out of deference and as a token of gratitude and respect" towards the Saudi monarch. It is added, furthermore, that the pieces "were kept and remained stored during all this time, together with those of family origin and other gifts from friends, without any use or any destination, and without awareness of their material value".

In any case, regarding the valuation of the set of jewels, which the Ansorena jewelry store estimated at 1.6 million, the former socialist leader states that he "does not accept or adopt" this valuation, the amount of which is "undoubtedly much higher than the real value of the pieces." His argument is that the calculation of the value of the pieces was made based on the price they would cost today and not in 2007, when they were gifted to him. "The estimate offered [...] does not determine or allow for establishing what the value of the pieces was nineteen years ago," Zapatero states in his document.

Dutch investor under investigation sent to prison

The other development that has emerged this Wednesday regarding the case is the prison order that Judge Calama has decreed for Simon Verhoeven, the Dutch investor also under investigation, who provided three loans to Plus Ultra before the airline received the bailout from the Spanish government. The search and arrest warrant had been in effect for seven months, and on August 21, Verhoeven was arrested at Frankfurt am Main Airport. Finally, he will arrive in Spain this Thursday by plane, investigated for criminal organization, money laundering, influence peddling, and misappropriation.

According to the court order to which this newspaper has had access, the magistrate has summoned him for Friday at nine in the morning to testify, and to ensure he attends, he has decided to send him to Soto del Real as soon as he lands at Barajas. It is a decision taken on a “strictly precautionary and provisional” basis to “avoid any risk of flight in the time lapse” between his arrival in Spain and his appearance before the judge. That same day, he will have to decide whether to keep him in provisional prison.

In one of its reports, the UDEF detected “possible irregularities” in the transactions of the companies that Verhoeven used to provide loans to Plus Ultra. The question is whether the bailout money could have served to launder the loans he provided.