Manolo Barrós, head of Security at the King’s House between 1999 and 2013, died last morning as a result of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) he suffered from. This Friday afternoon, the King attended his funeral chapel, installed in the Tres Cantos Mortuary (Madrid), to offer his condolences to the family of someone who was a trusted person of King Juan Carlos and, in recent years, close collaborator of Queen Sofía in the implementation of ALS research projects.
His last public appearance was last December when the 69-year-old soldier presided along with the King’s mother, an act full of emotion and commitment since the Manolo Barrós research project, which finances the Queen Sofia Foundation.
The event was attended by many of the people who worked with Manolo Barrós in the thirty years that he was at the service of the King’s House, the last 14 as head of Security. That day, the strength of Barrós, already very ill, impressed him, and he wanted to be present with his wife and his two children.
Precisely, next June Queen Sofía plans to be present at the inauguration of the First Manolo Barrós International Congress on ALS, which will take place in Almería, organized by the Neurological Diseases Research Center (CIEN Foundation), dependent on the Institute of Health Carlos III, in collaboration with the Reina Sofía Foundation, the Almería City Council and the Provincial Council.
During the years in which General Barrós Vales was head of Security of the King’s House, his presence was constant alongside the members of the royal family. After a brilliant military career that began in 1976 after leaving the General Military Academy of Zaragoza, in December 2015, on the occasion of his transfer to the reserve, he said goodbye to his position as Deputy General to the Chief General of the UME, after 42 years of service in the Armed Forces, thirty of them assigned to the King’s House.
