New audio has leaked of the businesswoman and and former lover of Spanish king Juan Carlos I which entangles even further the controversy swirling around the Spanish monarch. Whilst yesterday it emerged that Corinna zu Sayn claims the CNI (Spanish secret service) threatened her life and the king knew it, today El Español and Ok Diario reveal that, in a call to police officer José Manuel Villarejo, she says the king, who abdicated in 2014, was involved in the Nóos corruption scandal for which his son-in-law Iñaki Urdangarin is currently serving time in prison.
"I was next to [Juan Carlos]" when he was asking for money for the Nóos scheme she says: "He called [and said] 'Can you please put [a] 100,000 contract here, a 1 million contract?' I was next to him".
This isn't the first time links have been claimed between Juan Carlos and the case. For example, Urdangarin said that he had sent him an email about the project. Now, according to this recording, from 2015, the king played a bigger role in the plot than previously suggested. "If tomorrow I have to go to court and I have to give explanations... 'Instituto Nóos, who made all the phone calls for the money?' 'The king'," Corinna says. In fact, the king's former lover claims that the monarch "has no concept of what is legal and what is illegal".
Why her
In the recordings released yesterday, Corinna was already heard saying that it was the Royal Family who implicated her in the Nóos case: "Once you see that, as the mother of two children, and you see that they're prepared to kill you to save their daughter, you see that it's all very dangerous". She said they wanted to implicate her for infanta Cristina to escape clean from the matter and for Urdangarin and her to be the only ones involved.
When she asked the former king why he hadn't defended her in the case, he replied that "blood is thicker". She said that "the Royal Household itself has put me in the Nóos case. They said 'better Iñaki and Corinna than Iñaki and Cristina'. That was the idea and the result: I had to publicly defend myself because legally, in Spain, I'm accused and implicated in the case. (...) I've told the king [Juan Carlos I] 17 times that his lawyers should meet with mine off the record to see how they explain things without me having to say anything. They've not done it. Full stop".