King Juan Carlos of Spain is no stranger to controversial hunting. Six years ago, it was asserted that the 74-year-old shot a drunken Russian bear that had been lured with honey and vodka. Officials dismissed the allegations as ridiculous. The Spanish media have just had another field day though, after they learned he’d broken his hip hunting in Botswana recently.

The King also shot and killed his brother in an accident when he was a teenager. And just last week, his 13-year-old grandson, Froilán Marichalar, shot himself in the foot while hunting in Spain – media claimed it was illegal for Marichalar to have been using the gun he had shot himself with.

The monarch’s fall in Botswana, which left him with a broken right hip, was made worse after a photograph of the king standing proudly in front of a dead elephant emerged.

Spanish media took the latest news about their king very seriously, and lambasted his actions while his country copes with austerity measures and the grip of the Eurozone crisis.

The photograph, which had actually been taken on a previous trip, was from the website of Botswana-based Rann Safaris, but it had been removed by Sunday.

It’s alleged the king would have forked out about $15 000 for the hunt.

According to a statement on the Palace website, the king had broken his hip in three places.

Surgeons at USP Hospitales SL’s San Jose Hospital rebuilt the joint, which had been weakened by arthritis, and added a prosthesis.

He had earlier been repatriated to Spain in a 10-hour journey by private jet, El Pais reported. The king was now recovering in the private hospital in Madrid.

[Source: Guardian]