The former king of Spain has asked a high court judge in London to dismiss a £126m claim for damages made by his ex-lover over alleged harassment, in the latest round of their long-running legal battle.
Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, a Danish businesswoman who has homes in England, has sued Juan Carlos, who abdicated in 2014, and is seeking damages for personal injury.
She alleges that he caused her “great mental pain” by ordering the then head of Spain’s national intelligence agency to harass and threaten her after her affair with the king.
Documents submitted to an earlier hearing allege that a book about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, was left in her home as a warning. Juan Carlos, 85, denies wrongdoing and disputes claims made against him.
At a high court hearing on Tuesday, Mrs Justice Collins Rice was told that Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, who is in her late 50s, wants more than £126m in damages.
A barrister for the former monarch urged the judge to strike out Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn’s claim. Adam Wolanski KC argued her case had “no realistic” prospect of success and that evidence “simply does not disclose a viable case”.
He said: “The pleaded case of harassment is a diffuse collection of complaints, some trivial, mostly historic.” He added: “Many of the matters the claimant relies on are subject to state immunity.”
He said Juan Carlos “emphatically denies ever having harassed the claimant”.
Lawyers representing Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn said the strikeout application was “misconceived” and should be refused. “The defendant continues to make every effort to prevent the court from determining this claim,” Jonathan Caplan KC, who is leading Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn’s legal team, told the judge in a written case outline.
“The suggestion made on behalf of the defendant that the claim is somehow abusive in that it is by itself designed to harass a vulnerable elderly statesman is both unfounded and bold.”
A number of other judges have overseen earlier hearings in the litigation.
Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn claims that after she her five-year affair with the king, the head of the Spanish national intelligence agency and his colleagues began “threatening her and her children”, according to documents presented to the high court in December 2021.
According to Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn’s allegations, the threats began when the agency head met her at London’s Connaught hotel in 2012, two years before Juan Carlos abdicated the Spanish throne and his son, Felipe, became king.
While the London meeting was taking place, Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn’s apartments in Monaco and a villa in Switzerland were broken into, she claims. She later discovered a book about Diana’s death had been left on a coffee table at the Swiss villa, the document stated. Papers at the apartment allegedly had been “disturbed”.
Wolanski wants Mrs Justice Collins Rice to rule that judges in England have “no jurisdiction” to consider some of the allegations.
Juan Carlos won the last round of the case.
Another high court judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, had ruled that claims could be considered at a trial in England. But in December Juan Carlos won an appeal after challenging some of the judge’s conclusions.
Court of appeal judges in London concluded that “the pre-abdication conduct alleged” was “immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of this country”.
