the times | Tuesday July 28 2020 1GM 31
Wo r l d
The Mercedes must go, clergy tell big-spending mother superior
The former mistress of Juan Carlos of
Spain has been placed under investi-
gation in connection with recordings in
which she alleged that the former king
had received a secret commission for
helping to win a $7 billion Saudi rail
deal.
A Spanish inquiry into audio of the
conversation between Corinna zu
Sayn-Wittgenstein and José Manuel
Villarejo, a now retired police officer,
was shelved in 2018 but reopened yes-
terday after new evidence emerged,
Spanish media reported.
The case had been closed because the
allegations against Juan Carlos relate to
before his abdication in 2014, when he
still had immunity from prosecution.
However, Manuel García, an investi-
gating judge, is now examining whe-
ther Ms Sayn-Wittgenstein commis-
sioned Mr Villarejo, then a serving offi-
cer, to obtain information about a
Spanish citizen.
The investigation will gather evi-
dence, the judge said, “without preju-
dice to the fact that this could lead us to
other types of infractions”. The court
document said that there were suffi-
cient grounds to examine whether a
crime had been committed.
The recordings were made at her
London home in 2015 after Mr Villarejo
asked for a meeting, alleging that
Spain’s intelligence service was plotting
to implicate her in criminal activity.
Mr Villarejo, who is being held in pre-
trial custody on charges of bribery of
public officials, money laundering and
The head of the Russian Orthodox
Church has ordered the abbess of a
Moscow convent to give up her
£100,000 car and direct public dona-
tions towards charitable work rather
than extravagant purchases.
It is the latest attempt by Patriarch
Kirill to tackle claims of profligacy
among the clergy.
Mother Superior Feofaniya, 55, has
run the Pokrovsky convent since 1995
and is also in charge of an Orthodox
school and two hotels run by the
church. President Putin awarded her
the state medal “For Merit to the Fa-
therland” in 2018.
This month a Russian website uncov-ered the fact that she had acquired an
expensive Mercedes-Benz S-Class se-
dan in 2016, prompting criticism on
social media. It is a far cry from the
humble beginnings of her monastic life
working in a convent cowshead.
Vladimir Legoyda, a spokesman for
the Moscow patriarchate, said that Pa-
triarch Kirill, 73, had issued his blessing
to the abbess parting ways with the car.“The leader of the Russian church
gave direction that donations at the
monastery should be used for social
and philanthropic aims,” he said, add-
ing that the patriarch had been obliged
several times to point out that clergy
“should not use automobiles that it is
usual to categorise as luxurious”.
Three years ago the church defended
a bishop in the Orel region, saying the£70,000 Toyota Land Cruiser he drove
was donated by an agricultural firm.
The patriarch has faced accusations
about his own lavish habits. His press
handlers once had to apologise for digi-
tally removing a £20,000 Breguet watch
from his wrist in an official photograph.
He travels in vehicles provided by the
Kremlin garage, including a Mercedes
Pullman and a Cadillac Escalade.Russia
Tom Parfitt Moscow
Two armed robbers who stormed a
church and demanded phones and
jewellery from the congregation were
shot dead by the brother of a former
Springboks rugby star.
Pieter van der Westhuizen was acting
in self-defence and to protect fellow
churchgoers when he used his own gun
to shoot the robbers, his lawyer said. He
has not been charged and is helping
police with their inquiries.
A third man escaped after the
incident at Querencia Ministries
Saudis paid
former king
of Spain, his
lover claimed
criminal association, first leaked the ta-
pes to the media. Police have recently
discovered other copies of the conver-
sation, which led to the reopening of
the investigation.
The new inquiry has added to the
legal woes of the former lovers who had
a relationship between 2004 and 2009.
A Swiss inquiry into secret offshore
accounts linked to Juan Carlos, 82, is in-
vestigating Ms Sayn-Wittgenstein, 56,
for money laundering over a €65 mil-
lion payment he made to her in 2012.
Yves Bertossa, a Swiss prosecutor, is
looking at an alleged $100 million
donation to Juan Carlos — €65 million
at the time — from Abdullah, then the
king of Saudi Arabia, in 2008.
The prosecutor is investigating whe-
ther the donation and the payment to
Ms Sayn-Wittgenstein were linked to
the alleged payment of illegal commis-
sions for the construction of a railway
in Saudi Arabia by a Spanish consort-
ium in 2011. Lawyers for Ms Sayn-Witt-
genstein say the payment was a gift and
deny that it is linked with illegal com-
missions.
In Spain public prosecutors are see-
ing if there is enough evidence to start
proceedings for money laundering and
tax crimes against Juan Carlos over his
alleged ties to the suspected kickbacks.
Robin Rathmell, a lawyer for Ms
Sayn-Wittgenstein, said: “Corinna
never hired or discussed hiring Villare-
jo and therefore never paid him for any-
thing... Our client will robustly defend
her rights against these baseless accu-
sations.”
Juan Carlos’s lawyer declined to
comment.Less jail time
for chef who
filleted his
rival’s body
Germany
David Crossland Berlin
Germany’s Supreme Court has over-
turned the sentence of a Chinese chef
convicted of killing his colleague and
cutting him up using his filleting skills.
The 38-year-old man, named only as
Jitao W, was convicted of manslaughter
for killing fellow cook Hayiang S with
whom he worked in a Chinese restau-
rant in Cologne. They had been em-
broiled in a prolonged feud that includ-
ed a punch-up in the street in July 2016
in which the eventual killer was injured.
Hayiang disappeared in the summer
of 2016. In July of that year children
found the torso of a man on the bank of
the Rhine. Ten months later there was
another gruesome discovery, again by
children, who found bones and a skull
while on a school outing in a forest.
Forensic experts found that the body
parts were from the same unidentified
corpse. They deduced that the dead
man had eaten Asian food for many
years and hence had probably not
grown up in Europe. They were also
able to state that he had lived in Europe
in the last two years of his life because
his nutrition had changed radically.
They traced the victim with the help
of a missing persons’ database and
arrested Jitao W in Rosenheim, Bava-
ria, in January 2018.
At the trial a forensic scientist said
the victim had been cut up by a person
schooled in anatomy who deliberately
cut around the bone and may have
boiled the body parts beforehand.
The accused cut up the victim “in the
way he had learnt it as part of his train-
ing as a chef”, the judge said. “Someone
was at work here who is skilled in hand-
ling meat. The extremities were sepa-
rated from the joints. That requires
training and knowledge.”
Jitao W appealed twice against the
January 2019 verdict by the Cologne re-
gional court and won both times.
Following the first appeal, the Feder-
al Court of Justice quashed the man-
slaughter conviction and reduced it to
causing bodily harm resulting in death
on the grounds that he may only have
been trying to injure rather than kill
him. The ruling has cut his custodial
sentence to four years and six months.
The second appeal has now led to the
sentence being overturned because the
regional court had not provided suffi-
cient grounds for the new prison term,
which was in the middle of the guide-
line sentencing range.
Jitao W denies the killing and says
the conviction was based on circum-
stantial evidence. He and Hayiang S,
28, frequently came to physical blows.
The court was told that Hayiang S
had told his mother in China: “If any-
thing ever happens to me, then he’ll
have something to do with it.” He had
booked a flight ticket to China for July
12, 2016, but never made the trip.Brother of Springbok rugby star kills church robbers
South Africa
Erin Conway-Smith Johannesburg
church in the suburb of Wierda Park,
Centurion, near Pretoria, on Sunday.
Police said that the gunmen burst into
the church near the end of the service.
Kobus Erasmus, the pastor, was
pistol-whipped and treated at the scene
for minor injuries. He was also said to
have had a gun pointed at his head.
None of the worshippers sustained
serious injuries, despite the robbers
firing numerous shots inside the
church, a police spokesman said.
“We were singing the last hymn, just
before I was about to say the last
prayer,” Mr Erasmus told South Africa’s
Times Live news website. “We wereshocked beyond words because we
were in a church and within seconds
everything changed.”
He added that everyone was praying.
“We prayed for them too,” Mr Erasmus
said, referring to the robbers.
Mr van der Westhuizen is a former
police officer. Ulrich Roux, his lawyer,
told Times Live that his client had been
traumatised by the incident. He said:
“He acted in self-defence, not only for
himself but for the people who were in
the church.”
His brother Joost is considered one of
the greatest scrum-halves in rugby
history. He was a member of the Spring-boks side that lifted the rugby union
World Cup in 1995, which was the sub-
ject of the film Invictus. He made 89 ap-
pearances for the national side between
1993 and 2003 and scored 38 tries. He
had motor neurone disease diagnosed
in 2011 and died in 2017, aged 45.
This month five people were killed
and dozens injured during a dramatic
gun battle at a church in Zuurbekom,
west of Johannesburg. Several people
were taken hostage in the attack at the
International Pentecost Holiness
Church, which was connected to a feud
over leadership and assets. The
different factions have agreed a truce.Pipe dream A young vervet monkey makes good use of local infrastructure to
inspect the breakfast being served to tourists in South Luangwa, ZambiaBOB PIETROWSKI/MAGNUS NEWSSpain
Isambard Wilkinson Madrid