A Spanish prosecutor has called for charges against Princess Cristina de Borbón, the sister of King Felipe VI, to be dropped in a high-profile case relating to her husband’s allegedly corrupt business practices.
Pedro Horrach, the state prosecutor, asked the presiding judge José Castro to throw out two counts of tax fraud resulting from a private prosecution brought against Cristina by a pseudo trade union, Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), which demanded an eight-year prison sentence and a €2m fine.
The state is seeking a 19-and-a-half-year sentence for her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin, and a total of 103 years’ jail for him and his associates if convicted.
In a 576-page document, Horrach cited the so-called Botín doctrine, named after the late Emilio Botin, former president of Santander Bank, according to which a private prosecution is considered null if neither the attorney general’s office nor the Inland Revenue has brought charges.
“If they don’t bring a criminal action against someone because they don’t think there is a charge to answer then this legitimate process cannot be usurped by a third party,” Horrach wrote. The Manos Limpias petition was the last one implicating the princess.
“After months of intensive investigation, the only conclusion reached is a rickety ‘might have known’ that puts Doña Cristina de Borbón in an indefensible position,” he added.
Horrach has demanded Cristina repay €587,413, half of the funds that it is alleged were illegally obtained by a company she ran jointly with her husband. Her lawyer, Miquel Roca, said she was prepared to pay the sum immediately so that she would “simultaneously be freed of both civil and criminal responsibility”.
The charges relate to allegations that Urdangarin, a former Olympic handball champion, and his business partner Diego Torres used a shell company, the Instituto Nóos, to divert public funds intended for sports and other events into their own pockets. Some of this money allegedly found its way into Aizoon, a firm jointly run by Cristina and her husband, which allegedly defrauded the taxman out of €337,138.
“If the infanta [Cristina] didn’t know that Aizoon was an instrument used by her husband to obtain public funds, why should she have known that it was also used to defraud the Inland Revenue?” the prosecutor asked.
Both Cristina and her husband have denied wrongdoing. In a preliminary hearing in February more than 400 questions were put to Cristina, to which she answered “I don’t know” on 182 occasions, and she told the court that she trusted her husband to manage their finances. Horrach claimed that she was merely “a decorative element” in Urdangarin’s business affairs.
While Cristina may now walk free, the prosecution is seeking a hefty sentence for Urdangarin and 16 years for Torres, his associate, for allegedly embezzling €6.2 million in public funds. It is also asking for 11 years jail for Jaume Matas, former president of the Balearic Islands and former environment minister, for alleged fraud and embezzlement related to the Instituto Noos.
The 14 defendants, who include Torres’ wife and brother-in-law, face a total of 103 years in prison and fines of €8.7 million, of which Urdangarin’s share is €3.5 million.
