Spanish king’s brother-in-law convicted as princess is cleared
Bloomberg News
Inaki Urdangarin, the brother-in-law of Spain’s King Felipe VI, was convicted in a landmark corruption trial that became a lightning rod for public anger at abuses of the nation’s elite. His wife, Princess Cristina, was cleared by the court.
Urdangarin, a former Olympic handball player, was given a jail term of six years and three months by a court in Palma de Mallorca on counts including fraud and influence peddling. Princess Cristina, King Felipe’s sister, was cleared of being an accessory to tax fraud linked to her husband’s business, according to the General Council of Judicial Power.
The conviction for Urdangarin marks the denouement of a scandal that revealed to Spaniards how institutionalized corruption had grown up during the long economic boom that had turned to bust by 2008.
Emerging as unemployment surged and the government slashed spending at the height of the country’s economic crisis, the case contributed to a sense of anger that helped turn the antiausterity platform Podemos into a political force.
The princess is happy to be cleared but disappointed in the sentence for her husband, whom she has always believed to be innocent, her lawyer, Miquel Roca, said.
“This long-running case has come to an end and it may do something to restore trust in public life,” said William Chislett, an analyst at the Real Instituto Elcano think tank. “It’s all about the rule of law and everyone being equal before the law.”
The princess will have to pay as much as 265,088 euros because of responsibilities related to how she benefited from her husband’s dealings. She already paid a greater amount than that in 2014, Mr. Roca said.
Princess Cristina was the first Spanish royal to face criminal allegations in court since the monarchy was reinstated more than 40 years ago. King Juan Carlos, the father of King Felipe and Princess Cristina, abdicated in 2014 as the investigation into the scandal played out.
Prosecutors will seek immediate prison for Urdangarin and for Diego Torres, his partner at Noos. Torres was sentenced to eight years and six months in jail, on charges including influence trafficking, fraud and tax offenses.