Saturday 8 May 2010

Sean Connery faces court questions over Marbella land deal

MARBELLA
(The Scotsman) Spanish media said the former James Bond star and his wife Micheline Roquebrune are to be called to a court over matters related to the sale of an estate in the area. For 20 years Sir Sean has holidayed at Malibu, his lavish seaside property in Marbella. After their wedding in 1975 he and his wife spent much of their time on the Costa del Sol, where they indulged their love of golf in between his film projects. After its sale in 1998, a block of 70 flats was built on the spot. Sir Sean put the block up for sale a decade ago for £6 million, according to reports in the Spanish media. The couple had owned and lived in the luxury mansion, which had three guest houses, a pool and 5,093 square metres of garden, since the early 1970s. But on Wednesday>

detectives from the National Police acting on orders of investigating judge Ricardo Puyol, accompanied officials from the Spanish Treasury to the offices of a law firm involved in handling the sale of the property.
There, in an operation codenamed Goldfinger after Sir Sean's 1964 James Bond film of that title, the officers confiscated 30,000 documents, the Madrid daily newspaper El Mundo reported yesterday.

The newspaper, citing sources involved in the investigation, also reported that Sir Sean, 79, and his French-born wife had been summoned, along with members of the Diaz-Bastien & Truan law practise, to make statements to Mr Puyol as "implicated parties". They are due to appear at hearings between 27 and 29 May.

The couple will be questioned by the magistrate, who has placed a secrecy order on the case. Neither Sir Sean nor his wife has been arrested or charged with any offence.

It is understood that Sir Sean and his wife put El Malibu on the market in 1998 and the sale was handled by the British estate agents Knight Frank. It was alleged in Spanish papers that the raid on the lawyers' office was connected with suspected money laundering through property development.

Spanish newspaper El Pais quoted members of the law company as saying that the detectives "merely accompanied" Treasury technicians who carried out "an inspection".

Spain's government funded national news agency EFE, quoting "judicial sources", reported that Sir Sean and his wife were "implicated by a Marbella court in some inquiries in a town planning case". The latest police activity is part of an ongoing investigation into planning abuses, embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion carried out during the administration of the late mayor of Marbella, Jesus Gil y Gil.

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