Sir Sean Connery failed to appear at a court hearing in Marbella on Friday after claiming he was too old to travel, although some pointed out he was not too old to fly to the Edinburgh Film Festival in June and dance a jig for the cameras.
The 80-year-old actor had been summoned to give testimony in a corruption case surrounding the sale of his beach house in Marbella in 1999. Sir Sean himself has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
The house was sold for a reported £5.5 million and a property developer later built a four-storey block of holiday apartments on the site which were then sold for an estimated £45 million.
Investigators claim there were irregularities in the reclassification of the land after the actor sold it, and police raided the offices of Sir Sean’s law firm, Diaz-Basten & Truan, and several local council officials are also being investigated in what has become known as the ‘Goldfinger’ case.