SerpApi.Org
Jonathan Andic, the son of Isak Andic, the billionaire Mango founder, was told by a therapist to confront his father on a cliff edge days before he plunged off a mountain.
In a case that has gripped Spain, Isak Andic, 71, fell 300ft to his death while walking with his 45-year-old son on Montserrat mountain near Barcelona in December 2024.
Jonathan was arrested in May on suspicion of murder. He denies wrongdoing and maintains that his father stumbled while taking a picture of the view.
Police claim there had been tensions between father and son over the running of fashion brand Mango, and a dispute over inheritance plans. They say that the father’s phone was found in his pocket after the fall.
Now, a new witness has told police that a therapist told Jonathan to confront his father on a cliff edge.
The witness, described by the newspaper El Periódico as a middle-aged British female resident in Barcelona, said she had been asked by the Andic family’s therapist to seek out an “extreme route” for the two men to walk together.
The idea allegedly proposed by Maria Julia Lüderwaldt, an alternative therapist who had been coaching Jonathan and Isak, was that they should confront their problems on a precipice.
The British woman told police that Lüderwaldt had instructed Jonathan to place himself and his father in an “extreme situation”, describing an exercise in which he should stand “at the edge of a cliff”, according to La Vanguardia newspaper.
The witness, who works as a translator and did occasional work for Ms Lüderwaldt, said that she had chosen the route in the Montserrat Natural Park, and accompanied Jonathan on walks in the area a few days before his father was found dead at the bottom of a cliff.
Prosecutors have not accused Ms Lüderwaldt of any offence or placed her under investigation, and there is no suggestion that the alleged therapeutic exercise was intended to cause physical harm.
Vehicle tracking determined suspect’s movements
The Mossos d’Esquadra Catalan police force had previously used vehicle tracking to determine that the suspect had visited the same trail on three previous occasions, on Dec 7, 8, and 10.
In her detention order, Judge Raquel Nieto Galván indicated that these dates showed a premeditated plan for what she and prosecutor Teresa Yoldi considered to be a suspected homicide.
The translator reportedly backed up her testimony with messages she had shared with the therapist, and said she had decided to come forward as she was literally “losing sleep” over holding back evidence in a case that has attracted a huge amount of publicity.
In the detention order, Judge Nieto Galván wrote that the main cause for that poor relationship was Jonathan’s “obsession with money”.
Isak’s fortune in 2024 was valued at €4.5bn (£3.9bn).
The money, comprising his 95 per cent stake in Mango plus around £1bn in property assets, was divided equally between his three children, Jonathan, Judith and Sarah, in a settlement in June.
Jonathan continues to protest his innocence and has stood down from his business activities in order to prepare his defence in an eventual trial.
