Disgraced tycoon "proud" of championing the workers

José María Ruiz-Mateos - an octogenarian impresario of Dickensian proportions, who has presided over the scandalous collapse of two business empires - exuded theatrical defiance on Tuesday as a Spanish court barred him from leaving the country while it brings fraud charges against him.

Ruiz-Mateos, whose now-bankrupt Nueva Rumasa conglomerate sold high-yielding promissory notes to individual investors - payments on which were not honored - said he had "no regrets" and declared that he was "proud and happy" for having always labored "for the working class."

He later let loose his famously waspish tongue, accusing the doyen of the Spanish banking community, Emilio Botín - who is the chairman of former Rumasa creditor bank Santander - of "manipulating judges" at his whim.

Tuesday's court hearing in Palma de Mallorca was in connection with alleged fraud in the purchase of an hotel. The judge ordered him and his six sons, who are also implicated in the case, to appear before the judiciary authorities every two weeks. Ruiz-Mateos described the fraud allegation as a "complete joke."

Ruiz-Mateos skipped the country during a legal probe into the collapse of the first Rumasa, which was expropriated by the Spanish government in the 1980s.