Princess clear of fraud, her husband convicted
Iñaki Urdangarin, MADRID — the brother-in-law of King Felipe VI of Spain, was sentenced to prison Friday in a business fraud case that represented a major embarrassment to the country’s monarchy, even though the king’s sister, Princess Cristina, was found not guilty.
A regional court on the island of Majorca sentenced Urdangarin to six years and three months in prison, far less than the 191/2 years sought by the prosecution, for his business dealings relating to the disbursement of millions of dollars of public funds for sporting events.
In January 2016, Cristina became the first member of Spain’s royal family to stand trial in modern history, after authorities began looking into Urdangarin’s business practices in 2011. Police raided the offices of his nonprofit foundation, the Nóos Institute, as part of an investigation prompted by huge cost overruns for the construction of a cycling track on Majorca.
Urdangarin — who was found guilty on several counts, including fraud, document falsification, tax evasion and influence peddling — was among 18 defendants on trial. He and his business partners were accused of embezzling more than $6 million that had been distributed by regional officials for organizing sports events.
The princess was on the board of Nóos, and she and her husband owned a real estate company that prosecutors claimed was used to channel illegal revenue to undeclared bank accounts.
The court on Friday accepted Cristina’s argument that she had not been aware of any wrongdoing by her husband, but fined her more than $280,000 for her corporate obligations related to the businesses and earnings of her husband. Urdangarin was fined almost $550,000.
The prosecution sought no prison sentence for Cristina but had called for her to reimburse money earned via her husband’s companies.
The chances of a tougher sentence against her effectively fizzled last year, after Clean Hands, the private anti-corruption association that had filed the case, was itself caught up in a scandal and disbanded.
Given the gravity of the sentence delivered Friday, the prosecution was expected to demand that Urdangarin enter prison immediately, although he and others convicted could still appeal before the Supreme Court.
The case is one of several political corruption scandals in Spain involving money embezzled from regional governments.
Felipe became king on the abdication of his father, Juan Carlos, in 2014, by which point Urdangarin had already been cut off from the royal household. In his 2011 Christmas speech, Juan Carlos assured Spaniards, “Justice is the same for everyone.”
Since then, King Felipe has also cut the royal family’s public ties with his sister, as part of efforts to fight corruption, increase transparency and improve the tainted image of the monarchy.
Cristina, 51, was stripped by royal decree of her title as Duchess of Palma, but she has kept her succession rights, which put her sixth in line to the throne. She married Urdangarin, a former Olympic handball player, in 1997.