Zapatero claims asking Saudi King for jewelry receipts would be 'extravagant'

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero admits he holds no documentation for jewelry valued at €1,023,320, allegedly gifted by King Abdullah in 2007, arguing that demanding a receipt from the Saudi monarch would have been "extravagant." His defense asks the National Court to compel the judge to request this evidence from the Saudi Royal Court.

There is a recurring scene in courtrooms that rarely ends well: an investigated person explaining why evidence does not exist instead of providing it. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has just elevated this scenario into a legal argument. Nineteen years after receiving jewelry valued by the judiciary at **1,023,320 euros**, the former Prime Minister admits he keeps no invoice, certificate, or even the original cases. His explanation fits in one sentence: asking for a purchase ticket from someone giving you a gift is bad taste.

The defense formulates this more solemnly. In an appeal filed before the Incivil Chamber of the **Audiencia Nacional** (Spain's high court), lawyer **Víctor Moreno Catena** argues that when a head of state delivers a gift, "neither they nor he himself issued a receipt for the delivery, as such action is extravagant in the context in which it occurred." Translated: the gift was so private and regal that asking for paper would have broken the charm. The appeal trinc Judge **José Luis Calama**'s rejection on **October 27** of the letter rogatory requested by the defense to certify the former president's version with Saudi Arabia.

## The clock delivered and the jewelry missing

One detail in the case complicates the strictly personal gift theory. Official documents incorporated into the proceedings prove Zapatero did hand over other gifts from the same Saudi monarch to the State. Among them is a gold table clock with emeralds, dated **June 19, 2007**, during that same visit. That object was indeed inventoried among institutional gifts added to public heritage in **March 2012**.

The twelve pieces of jewelry now under investigation, divided into three sets of emeralds, sapphires, and red gems, do not appear in that inventory. Zapatero defends that the difference was due to King **Abdullah**'s will: the clock was institutional, the jewels personal. "Nor were the gifts delivered in a single act, nor in the same place, nor with the same character," states the appeal. The instructor finds it hard to accept this distinction for an uncomfortable reason: it was Zapatero's own government that approved the Code of Good Governance in **February 2005**, requiring significant institutional gifts to be incorporated into public heritage.

## Two letters without acknowledgment and unhelpful expert analysis

The defense has also failed to get support from Riyadh. Zapatero claims to have sent two letters to the Royal Court, one in **June** and another in **August** of this year, to obtain confirmation of the gift. He admits, however, that he has no formal acknowledgment of receipt for either and that his efforts have received no express response. From there, he demands that the judicial apparatus move the file forward, because he could not do so on his own. Calama already responded in writing that international cooperation cannot serve to "build ex novo the evidentiary basis for a mere assertion made by the investigated person himself."

Scientific analysis has not cleared doubts either. The **Yanes** appraisal lowered the valuation compared to the **€1,323,915** initially calculated by **Ansorena** and pointed to probable Asian manufacture. Furthermore, it linked the metallic composition to techniques subsequent to European regulations on nickel from **2007**, although acknowledging it could not specify the exact year of creation. On **November 3**, Calama ordered the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit to investigate who might have manufactured the pieces based on the hallmark of the most valuable ones: a rectangular mark with a T and the inscription 18K, insufficient so far to locate their origin.

## The embezzlement front opens

The **Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office** has gone further than the instructor. It considers that the former president's own explanation could justify expanding the investigation for alleged embezzlement, having acknowledged privately retaining considerable value assets received while serving as government head. Calama left a specific resolution on this request pending, so the front remains open.

The defense also disputes the tax investigation and possible smuggling charges. It criticizes that these peine without prior verification by the Tax Agency, that no provisional settlement exists, that the affected fiscal year has not been identified, nor specified which customs obligation might have been breached. Zapatero insists he never truly knew the value of the jewelry, that "they have never been used by anyone," and that he never tried to sell them. His lawyer calls the alternative proposed by the judge—having the former president manage the document with Saudi authorities himself, even traveling to the country and leveraging old institutional relationships—as "illusory."

## What the appeal exactly requests

The filing asks the Incivil Chamber to revoke Calama's decision and force the instructor to issue the letter rogatory to the Saudi Royal Court. The defense accuses the magistrate of acting out of "the mere disbelief of the investigating judge regarding the explanation offered" and denounces a abusa of the right to defense. It argues that the judge must also investigate what favors the suspect, not only what harms him.

The underlying problem is that the entire strategy rests on a document that does not yet exist and which, according to the defense itself, no one has issued in nineteen years. If the Chamber accepts the appeal, Saudi Arabia will have to confirm in writing if King Abdullah gifted those pieces in June 2007. If it rejects it, the former president will be left with his version and no paper to support it. It is worth remembering that this is an ongoing judicial investigation and no one has been convicted: what exists, for now, is an investigated person, a valuation of **€1,023,320**, and a judge who does not trust.