Spain's exiled former king Juan Carlos I has revealed for the first time how he killed his younger brother when they were teenagers. The former monarch, who now lives in Dubai, published his 500-page memoir this week, in which he writes about Alfonso's death almost 70 years ago.
Juan Carlos tells readers that for decades "I didn't like to talk about it, and this is the first time I do."
In the book, which has been published in France under the title "Juan Carlos I d'Espagne: Réconciliation," the 87-year-old seeks to reconcile with his son, King Felipe VI of Spain, and confront painful memories from the past.
He recounts the traumatic incident that occurred in his childhood, when his brothers were "playing" with a pistol in the family home in Portugal, in 1956. "I will never recover from this tragedy. Its significance will accompany me forever," writes Juan Carlos.
The episode is narrated in a chapter of just two pages titled "The Tragedy", where the former king explains that the pistol's magazine had been removed, so he thought it posed no danger.
"We had removed the magazine. We had no idea there was a bullet left in the barrel. A shot rang out in the air, the bullet ricocheted and hit my brother squarely in the forehead. He died in our father's arms," he writes.
At that time, no judicial investigation was opened into the circumstances of the gunshot accident.
Juan Carlos, then 18, and Alfonso, 14, were playing with a Star Bonifacio Echeverria automatic pistol that belonged to their younger brother. As they were alone in the room, it has always remained unclear how Alfonso was killed.
One of Princess María de las Mercedes' dressmakers claimed at the time that Juan Carlos had pointed the pistol at Alfonso and fired without knowing that it was loaded.
But other sources have said that the bullet had fallen after a collision or that the door had hit the former king's arm, causing him to accidentally shoot his brother.
Another story says that Juan Carlos, who had returned home for Easter from his rigorous military school, was cleaning a revolver that Francisco Franco had given him when he shot his brother.
