The jewelry house Yanes, designated by the investigating judge in the "Plus Ultra case," José Luis Calama, to carry out a second valuation of the jewels seized from former Government president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero by the National Police in his office, has set the value of the pieces at 1,023,320 euros.
According to a report sent to the magistrate of the National High Court and to which Europa Press has had access, the experts at Yanes place the price of the set above one million euros, an amount somewhat lower than the 1.3 million of the initial appraisal carried out by the firm Ansorena.
The experts group the jewels into three main sets made up of rubies, emeralds and sapphires, with a combined value of 938,500 euros, while the rest of the jewels are included in a fourth lot, "of little relevance" and valued at 84,820 euros.
The jewelry house Yanes emphasizes in its opinion that "it is incoherent that pieces of this value are not accompanied by their original cases for their proper preservation and protection, as well as that they lack the documentation and accreditation of quality and identity that normally accompany ostentatious jewels such as those mentioned in lots 1, 2 and 3".
The report details that each of the collections includes a necklace, earrings, ring and bracelet. The first set, of emeralds and diamonds, is valued at 373,100 euros; the second, of red gems and diamonds, at 203,000 euros; and the third, composed of sapphires and diamonds, at 362,400 euros.
The specialists also clarify that the three highest-value sets "are commercially manufactured jewels and of very probable Asian origin".
Zapatero stated that these jewelry sets were given to him by the then monarch of Saudi Arabia as a gesture of personal courtesy during his official visit to Spain in June 2007, when the socialist leader was holding the Presidency of the Government, and that they remained in his possession without his being aware of their high economic value.
The former PSOE leader asked the judge to issue a letter rogatory to Saudi Arabia to verify the origin of the jewels, but Calama rejected the request through an order to which this agency has had access, considering that "the factual hypothesis on which the requested measure rests" lacks "a minimum objective element of corroboration that would allow its usefulness, necessity and relevance to be appreciated".
In that same order, the magistrate calls Zapatero's version into question, emphasizing that the jewels were not kept in their original cases nor accompanied by certificates of authenticity, documents of provenance or other identifying elements that are usually associated with goods of this type and value.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, for its part, pointed out that the former Prime Minister could have committed a possible offense of embezzlement of public funds, punishable by prison terms, by accepting jewelry "of very significant value" from Saudi Arabia and not handing them over to the State Heritage, "as he did with other gifts at the end of his presidency".
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, "the offense of embezzlement cannot be considered time-barred", given that the statute of limitations is 15 years and Zapatero left out "such jewels from the effects that he did declare and hand over to the State Heritage on March 1, 2012", once his term had ended.