Juan Carlos accused of blackmail to save daughter from trial

The King of Spain's father, Juan Carlos I, has been accused of offering civil service trade union Manos Limpias €2 million to withdraw its accusation against his daughter Cristina de Borbón, it has emerged. The evidence is a conversation recorded between the leader of Manos Limpias, Miguel Bernad and the union's lawyer in the Nóos case, Virginia López Negrete, published in yesterday's edition of the newspaper El Mundo.

In the conversation, Bernad, currently in prison, informs López Negrete that Juan Carlos had offered them €2 million through an intermediary, plus the cost of the trial, in exchange for withdrawing the complaint against Princess Cristina in the Nóos case. In the recording, the lawyer tells Bernad they cannot accept the offer. Manos Limpias' accusation was the only charge keeping King Philip VI's sister in the dock, calling for her imprisonment for collaborating in two alleged crimes that State prosecutors and lawyers have attributed to her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin, the former handball player.

Just yesterday López Negrete appeared in court in connection with the banking extortion plot that saw Bernad and the director of the Bank Users Association (Ausbanc), Luis Pineda, sent to prison in April.