Former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero did not include any jewelry among the nearly 500 gifts that he officially declared when leaving La Moncloa, where he was between 2004 and 2011.
This is stated in the National Heritage report that Judge José Luis Calama, instructor of the 'Plus Ultra case', formally requested last Friday, October 23. An unauthenticated duplicate of this document was included by the Prosecutor's Office in the document in which it proposes charging the former president with embezzlement, something that it considers can be attributed to him for not declaring the jewelry found in the safe in his office.
The Anti-Corruption prosecutor, María Elena Lorente, in her report sent to the magistrate, explained that she collected the Patrimony report from "open sources", which is why she asked the magistrate to request a "certified copy".
In this list provided by the prosecutor, there is a list of nearly 500 gifts that Zapatero said he had received when he was in power. This document does not include any jewels similar to those found in the former Chief Executive's office last May, among which there were emeralds, rubies and sapphires valued at 1.3 million euros in a first appraisal.
The former president has argued that these pieces were a gift that Abdullah Al-Saud, then king of Saudi Arabia, gave him in 2007 during a visit to Spain. He points out that he did not declare these gifts when he left La Moncloa, something for which he was already accused of smuggling and now the prosecutor is asking to charge him with embezzlement.
Anti-Corruption highlights that, in the notification to Heritage, it only appears that Abdullah Al-Saud gave a golden mantel clock with emeralds on this visit. The list also refers to two other Saudi gifts from 2008, which the "heir" of this country Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud gave on another trip to Spain: a "mantel clock on a marble base with a figure of a deer" and a "representation of a scene in the desert (palm tree, jaima and figures of characters) in gold and silver on a marble and jade base."
At the same time, in the list of gifts officially recognized by the former PSOE leader, the closest thing to jewelry is a "silver jewelry box", a gift from the president of Caja Granada in 2004, along with some "silver poncho pins" from Néstor Kirchner. Also collected is a replica of a 19th century pectoral ornament by Michelle Bachelet and a set of six 14-karat gold-plated glasses, from a Peruvian donor, and a large Filipino gold cross.
As for the Arab countries, a "wooden foot with desert gazelles under gold and silver trees" and a falcon appear, gifts from the Emir of Qatar. There is also a silver scimitar of Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh; a saddle of Libyan Muammar Gaddafi; a silver censer from Oman and a gold-inlaid plate from Mohamed VI.
Likewise, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, from Algeria, gave Zapatero a silver caravel with coral stones and a carved silver sword, and the Syrian minister Mohsen Bilal, a silver thread tea set.
