SHARE
COPY LINK

ROYAL FAMILY

Ex-king’s former lover says Spain spy chief threatened her life

The ex-lover of Spain's king emeritus testified Friday that her life had been threatened by a former spy chief on orders from the exiled monarch himself in a conversation that "terrified" her.

Ex-king's former lover says Spain spy chief threatened her life
Photos: AFP/Wikipedia

The explosive testimony by German-born business consultant Corinna Larsen emerged during the trial of a notorious retired police chief suspected of large-scale corruption whose revelations have shaken Spain's elite.

Speaking to a court in Madrid by video conference from London, Larsen — who also uses the surname zu Sayn Wittgenstein — said she had been directly threatened in May 2012 by General Felix Sanz Roldan, who served as head of Spain's CNI intelligence services between 2009 and 2019.    

And she testified that the orders had ultimately come from the then monarch, Juan Carlos I.

During her affair with the king, which ended in 2012, two years before his abdication, Larsen said she received sensitive documents about the “financial and business dealings” of the king and the royal household, which the security services wanted to get hold of.   

Testifying in court, she said Sanz Roldan had contacted her on several occasions to make clear that until she handed over the documents, she would not be safe, threatening both her and her children in a meeting at London's Connaught Hotel on May 5, 2012.    

“The general was saying various conditions and instructions, recommendations that I should follow. And he said unless I followed them, he could not guarantee my physical safety or the physical safety of my children,” she told the court, saying his words “terrified me.”

Feared for her safety

She said the meeting had been “organised at the express wish” of the king himself.

“King Juan Carlos and General Sanz Roldan always took great pains to explain that the king was commanding the general to carry out these operations so that's an important fact to note, that these instructions came from the top.”

Later that day, she flew to Switzerland and on entering the family apartment in the Alps, found a book about Lady Diana's 1997 death in a high-speed car crash in a Paris tunnel.

Several hours later, during the night, she said she received an anonymous call in Spanish saying: “There are many tunnels between Monaco and Nice.” Larsen has been a resident of Monaco since 2008.

“This hit home the reality of the threats and the danger I found myself in.”    Asked by the prosecution why she had not come forward before now, Larsen said she feared for her own safety given that both Sanz Roldan and the king benefited from diplomatic immunity.   

“Denouncing General Sanz Roldan, who is a secretary of state and has full immunity, I would have had to denounce the king of Spain himself as the person giving these orders and he was covered by immunity,” she said.

“We did not think that the police in London could actually help me or protect me.”

Larsen was testifying at the trial of former police chief Jose Manuel Villarejo, who is in the dock on charges of making a false allegation and slander for saying Sanz Roldan had threatened to kill Larsen in an interview published in June 2017.

Larsen met Villarejo at her home in London in April 2015, where she told him about the threats in a conversation which he recorded without her knowledge or consent.

READ ALSO: 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

WORKING IN SWEDEN

Swedish Royal Guards scrap ceremonial helmets over safety concerns

The King’s mounted Royal Guards will no longer be able to wear their iconic ceremonial helmets on parades, after the Swedish Work Environment Authority warned of serious safety concerns.

Swedish Royal Guards scrap ceremonial helmets over safety concerns

“We take the safety of our employees extremely seriously and we are going to address this immediately,” colonel Stefan Nacksten, head of the Royal Guards, wrote in a statement. 

Employed by the Armed Forces, the Royal Guards are the King’s cavalry and infantry units and are a well-known sight at ceremonies in Sweden, including at the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace of Stockholm every day in summer – a popular spectacle for Stockholmers and tourists alike.

The helmets will no longer be used by Royal Guards on horseback from July 7th, as they do not conform to safety standards for riding helmets, although guards parading on foot will still be permitted to wear them.

They are part of the 1895 parade uniforms and were last modified in 2000. The Armed Forces will now create an entirely new helmet which looks the part, but is also safe for riding.

“We’re working on finding an alternative solution as quickly as possible which meets safety requirements and can also be used during parades,” Nacksten said.

“We’ve been working long-term with this issue but now that it has been assessed [by the Swedish Work Environment Authority] we need to take measures immediately,” he added.

“This is good, and now we’re working to make sure something good comes out of this and we can get a safe riding helmet for parades in place as soon as possible.”

SHOW COMMENTS