Ekip
05 March 2016•Update: 05 March 2016
By Alyssa McMurtry
MADRID
Spain’s Princess Cristina claimed innocence at her trial this week, where she faces eight years behind bars for tax fraud, saying she trusted her business affairs to her husband while she focused on raising her family.
Both Princess Cristina and her husband Inaki Urdangarin, who faces 19 years in prison, gave testimony at this historic trial.
“I completely trust my husband and I am convinced of his innocence,” she declared Thursday evening.
The princess refused to answer any questions from the prosecution and only responded to those of her own lawyer.
Princess Cristina, 50, is the older sister of Spain’s current king and the daughter of the recently abdicated King Juan Carlos.
She is accused of tax fraud for her involvement in a “front company” that she jointly owned with her husband, the former Olympic handball player. She is accused of using the company credit card to make personal purchases such as a €15,797 ($17,367) safari in Africa, €1,357 worth of wine, haircuts, personal coaching, and salsa lessons, and then deducting those purchases in tax filings.
The princess owned half of the company Aizoon, which is suspected of being used to siphon funds out of her husband’s nonprofit Noos Institute. Prosecutors believe that her husband and his business partner embezzled around €6 million ($6.6 million) of public money from the supposedly nonprofit sports foundation. Her husband faces more serious charges, including embezzlement, money laundering, forgery, and breach of official duty.
When asked by her lawyer why she agreed to take the 50 percent stake in the company in 2003, she said simply, “My husband asked me to and I said yes”.
“At that time my children were very young and we were very busy,” said Cristina. “He was in charge of the family expenses. I didn't get involved in that”.
Although Cristina exercised her right to not answer questions from the prosecutors, the lawyer representing the anti-corruption union which is pressing charges against her read her the questions anyway. Cristina sat silent for 35 minutes while the lawyer grilled her about her knowledge of various expenses and introduced new evidence.
Earlier in the week, Cristina’s husband was on the stand and also asserted her innocence.
“When we had expenses, we handed the receipts to the secretary and she decided which expenses were passed on to the accounting department,” he said.
He also declared that Cristina never possessed an Aizoon company credit card. Instead, he insisted, it was in the hands of his secretary and other trusted employees who knew the pin number.
“The bank issued two cards, one for me, and after seeing that my wife owned 50% of the firm, it issued another. But I kept hold of it. She never had it personally. The card numbers were kept by me or my secretary,” he said.
Beyond Cristina and her husband, 14 more people are also facing charges related to the suspected corruption ring. The trial continues next week in the small courtroom on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, where much of the alleged activity took place. On Tuesday, the first of the almost 380 cited witnesses will begin to give testimony.
