Claire Wilson
JAMES BOND star Sean Connery and his wife have been forced to finally deny officially any involvement with corruption and money-laundering offences in Marbella.
It comes after it emerges that the film star and his wife have answered questions relating to the buying and selling of their former villa Malibu in Marbella.
It comes after the authorities threatened to issue an international arrest warrant if they did not come to Spain to answer questions about their involvement in the so-called Goldfinger case.
In a sworn testimony from his home in the Bahamas, he insisted he had ‘no connection with’ former mayor Jesús Gil, and ‘did not know him personally’.
This is despite appearing in a re-election campaign by Gil in the 1990s.
He also said he didn’t know another mayor Julián Muñoz or councillor Juan Antonio Roca, both of whom are charged with tax evasion and corruption offences concerning the sale of the home to be turned into luxury flats.
Connery was also asked about the two development companies he is linked to, Malibu SA, through which he owned his Costa del Sol villa, and By the Sea, a developer behind 72 luxury residential homes.
He explained that he had broken ties with Malibu SA in the 1980s, when he transferred his Marbella villa to his wife, and that he had never hand any connections with By the Sea.
He said he had never been involved in any developments in Marbella nor had been inside the Property Registry in the town.
He denied giving ‘gifts’ to its employees as ‘bribes’, and had never obtained any capital gains or profits from the operations being investigated in the case.
He added he had no tax obligations in Spain and did not have commercial holdings on the Isle of Man, in Uruguay, Panamá or Holland, where he has been accused of laundering money.
The actor stressed that he was testifying ‘voluntarily’ at the request of legal authorities in Spain and the Bahamas to ‘help with inquiries’.
The case, dubbed ‘Goldfinger’, has so far seen 17 people charged, including former mayors Jesús Gil, who died in 2004, Julián Muñoz and Juan Antonio Roca, together with five other ex-councillors, two solicitors, at least one business-owner and several accountants and financial advisors.
Sean is a very canny man.