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Spanish King heads home after hip surgery

Spain's King Juan Carlos left hospital on Monday, four days after surgeons replaced his left hip in the latest of a series of operations that have left him looking frail.

Published: 25 November 2013 13:51 CET

Spanish King heads home after hip surgery

Photo: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP

The 75-year-old king, who has appeared in public this year on crutches, waved at journalists from the front passenger seat as he was driven away in an official car from the private Quiron hospital in the western suburbs of Madrid.

"His majesty the king received his discharge after completing the post-operative period very satisfactorily and having achieved sufficient autonomy for daily life," hospital manager Lucia Alonso told reporters, reading out the latest medical bulletin.

Visiting doctors from a US clinic on Thursday fitted a permanent prosthesis in a two-and-a-half hour follow-up operation to replace a temporary one that was implanted on September 24 after the area around the previous joint became infected.

"The latest results from biopsies and microbiological cultures confirm the disappearance of the infectious process in the hip," the hospital said Monday.

"In the next weeks, Don Juan Carlos will continue with his treatment, post-operative checks and a planned outpatient recovery programme."

Surgeons said after the operation that they expected the king to walk again unaided in 10-12 weeks but warned he would have to avoid running and vigorous sports.

Thursday's procedure was the king's ninth operation since May 2010.

He has had surgery on a benign lump in his lung, his right knee, an Achilles tendon, a slipped disc, two operations on his right hip and three on his left.

The sight of the king on crutches in recent months and the news of the latest operations had fuelled speculation of a possible abdication, but the palace has flatly denied the king was considering such a possibility.

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'Alone and bored': A year after exile, legal woes haunt Spain's ex-king

Juan Carlos I's close ties with Gulf leaders have allowed him to live in opulent exile in Abu Dhabi for a year. Photo: KARIM SAHIB / AFP

He announced on August 3, 2020 he was moving abroad to prevent his personal affairs from undermining his son King Felipe VI’s reign and sullying the monarchy.

But his choice of new home — the United Arab Emirates, where some of his business affairs triggered the scandals that tainted his reputation in the first place — only raised Spaniards’ eyebrows further.

Juan Carlos has told his son that he would like to return to Spain “but he won’t come back without the approval” of the royal household, said Jose Apezarena, the author of several books on Felipe.

And the position of the royals is that “until his legal problems end, he should not return”, Apezarena told AFP.

The 83-year-old former king is the target of three separate investigations over his financial dealings, including those linked to a high-speed rail contract in Saudi Arabia that was awarded to a Spanish consortium.

Prosecutors in Spain and Switzerland are looking into suspicions he received kickbacks for facilitating the deal.

The suspicions centre on $100 million (€85 million) that Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah allegedly deposited in 2008 into a Swiss bank account to which Juan Carlos had access.

The other two investigations concern the alleged existence of a trust fund in Jersey linked to Juan Carlos and the undeclared use of credit cards linked to accounts not registered in his name, a possible money-laundering offence.

‘Very bored’

Spanish monarchs have immunity during their reign but Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014 following a series of health problems and embarrassing revelations about his personal life, leaving himself vulnerable to prosecution.

While he has not been charged with any crime, the probes have tainted his reputation as a leader of Spain’s democratic transition following the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

Outside of the Royal Palace in central Madrid, opinions were divided.

“He is being judged without any evidence, he should be able to come home if that’s what he wants,” said Pura Fernandez, 46, a bank worker.

But delivery rider Angel Galan, 27, was less sympathetic.

“He may have done some great things for Spain but if he committed irregularities I am not sad that he is gone,” he said.

While in exile, Juan Carlos has twice settled tax debts with Spanish authorities for a total of more than €5 million.

But he has otherwise kept a low profile at the villa on the island of Nurai off the coast of Abu Dhabi where he now lives.

“He is alone and very bored,” said Apezarena.

Photo: KARIM SAHIB / AFP

‘Not normal’

When reports emerged in February that Juan Carlos was in poor heath, the former monarch told online Spanish daily OKDiario he was “well, exercising two hours daily” in his only comments to the media since moving abroad.

Abel Hernández, a journalist and expert on the monarchy, said he believes Juan Carlos will return to Spain by the end of the year.

“He has not been charged with anything and has regularised his situation with the tax office. It does not seem normal that he remains outside of the country,” Hernández told AFP.

The scandals swirling around Juan Carlos have provided ammunition for those wanting to abolish the monarchy.

The far-left party Podemos, which is the junior partner in Spain’s coalition government, has called for a parliamentary investigation into Juan Carlos’s wealth.

Felipe, meanwhile, has sought to distance himself from his father.

Last year the king renounced his inheritance from Juan Carlos, and stripped the ex-monarch of his palace allowance after new details of his allegedly shady dealings emerged.

Polls show support for the monarchy has inched up since Juan Carlos moved abroad although a survey published Sunday in conservative daily La Razon found 42.9 percent of Spaniards feel Juan Carlos’s legal woes were hurting Felipe’s reign.

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