"We had no idea" Juan Carlos speaks for the first time about the life his brother took from him
Former Spanish King Juan Carlos has spoken out for the first time in almost 70 years about the accident in which his younger brother Alfonso died. The incident occurred when the brothers were playing with a gun.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- In his memoirs, former King Juan Carlos writes openly for the first time about the tragic accident in 1956 in which his brother Alfonso died from an accidentally fired shot.
- He describes the incident as a life-changing event and emphasizes that he did not know that there was still a bullet in the gun.
- Despite the death, there was no official investigation as his father forbade an inquiry and Juan Carlos had to swear that it was not intentional.
In 1956, a tragic accident shook the Spanish royal family: the then 18-year-old Juan Carlos, later King of Spain, spent the Easter holidays with his family in exile in Portugal.
There, a momentous tragedy occurred: his 14-year-old brother Alfonso lost his life in an accident. This stroke of fate has left its mark on the family to this day.
A fateful evening
On the evening of March 29, the brothers were playing with a pistol that Juan Carlos had brought with him from the military academy. A shot went off unexpectedly and killed Alfonso.
The exact circumstances of the accident remained a mystery for a long time, although the boy's death was officially confirmed. It only became known years later that Juan Carlos had fired the shot.
Public revelations
In his memoirs, which will be published in the fall of 2025, Juan Carlos speaks openly about the incident for the first time. The book is entitled "Juan Carlos I d'Espagne: Réconciliation" and contains a chapter dealing with the incident.
In it, he describes how the gun they were cleaning came from a lieutenant and he assumed it was not loaded. "We had no idea that there was still a bullet in the chamber," he writes.
A life in the shadow of tragedy
Juan Carlos describes the loss of his brother as a turning point in his life. "I miss him," he confesses, "I wish he was with me, that I could talk to him." Alfonso's death left a huge gap in his life that could never be filled.
No investigation
There was no police investigation or autopsy after the accident, as the boys' father, Don Juan de Borbón, forbade this.
A friend of the family, Antonio Eraso, who was at the villa at the time of the accident, confirmed in a documentary that Alfonso died instantly. He recalled that Don Juan demanded that Juan Carlos swear that the shot was not fired intentionally.
