Spain seeks eight-year jail term for Shakira in unpaid taxes case
Reuters News Service
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A Spanish prosecutor is seeking an eight-year prison term for the Colombian superstar Shakira over a €14.5m (£12.1m) tax fraud case, a prosecutor’s office document has revealed.
The singer, who has sold more than 80m records worldwide with hits such as Hips Don’t Lie, earlier this week rejected a settlement offer from the prosecutor’s office to close the case.
She is accused of failing to pay taxes between 2012 and 2014, a period in which Shakira says she did not live in Spain.
The prosecutor’s document, seen by Reuters, asserts that Shakira was ordinarily resident in Spain between 2012 and 2014, and in May 2012 bought a house in Barcelona that became a family home for herself, her partner, and their son born in Spain in 2013. The document asked for an eight-year prison sentence and a fine of more than €23m should she be found guilty. No date for a trial has been set.
Asked to comment, Shakira’s representatives referred to a previous statement released on Wednesday saying the singer was “fully confident of her innocence” and that she considered the case “a total violation of her rights”.
The terms of the earlier settlement offer have not been disclosed.
The 45-year-old singer said she has paid the tax authorities €17.2m, which the Spanish tax office said she owed, and claimed she has no outstanding debt.
The latest development in the case comes a month after Shakira and her husband, the FC Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué, announced they were separating. Shakira, 45, and Piqué, 35, have been together since 2011 and have two sons.
