DAY IN COURT
Major update in Shakira’s fraud trial as star faces up to eight years in jail over £13million tax evasion
SHAKIRA is due to stand trial at a Spanish court as the star faces up to eight years behind bars for over £13million in tax evasion.
The Colombian pop star could face a prison sentence of more than eight years after she was charged with defrauding the Spanish treasury between 2012 and 2014.
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She is alleged to have claimed that she did not live in Spain over those three years, while living with her then-partner Gerard Pique while he played for Barcelona.
The Colombian singer-songwriter, who earlier this month moved to Miami with their two children and is facing up to eight years in prison if she is found guilty.
As well the prison sentence, state prosecutors want the mum-of-two to be slapped with a 23million euro fine (£19.2m).
A date has now been set for the start of Shakira's fraud trial after an estimated 200 witnesses gave evidence.
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The first day of the trial has been scheduled November 20 and is set to take place over 12 sessions with the last day on December 14 as the court will not sit some days.
Shakira’s ex Gerard Pique is not expected to be called to testify.
She will be asked to attend but may be allowed to return home after testifying from the stand at the start of the proceedings.
News of the trial date emerged hours after former footballer Pique touched down in Miami to spend time with his children in his first visit to the US since they left Spain.
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The former Barcelona defender was filmed getting into a taxi dressed casually in baggy jeans and a loose fitting T-shirt.
He said nothing as he got into the cab before heading to a hotel.
The 36-year-old is expected to fly back to Barcelona next Monday after five days - instead of spending the allowed 10 with sons Milan, ten, and Sasha, eight.
The time allowances are part of part of the child custody agreement Pique and Shakira signed last December in court after months of bitter fighting.
Before leaving Barcelona to start her new life in Miami, Shakira delivered a scathing attack on Spanish tax authorities.
The Hips Don't lie singer claimed last November and accused the Spanish Treasury of using “unacceptable methods to damage her reputation and force her to come to a settlement agreement.”
She insisted she had no intention of making any last-minute plea bargain deals and would go to trial.
A spokesman for the Colombian artist also made it clear she felt the country’s tax authorities were accusing her of lying about residing outside of Spain “without evidence” for the years she had been charged with tax fraud.
Shakira, previously tax resident in the Bahamas, only registered as a full-time tax resident in Spain in 2015 despite starting to date her ex Pique five years earlier.
People who spend more than 183 days in a given calendar year in Spain are considered Spanish residents for tax purposes.
Spanish tax inspectors reportedly spent more than a year checking up on Shakira, even visiting her favourite hairdressers in Barcelona and checking her social media to try to show she spent most of the three years in dispute in Spain.
They concluded she had spent 242 days in Spain in 2012, 212 days in 2013 and 243 days in the country in 2014 before indicting her with six counts of tax fraud for those three years.
Shakira’s Barcelona-based publicists LLYC released a statement in November that read: “Shakira is a taxpayer who has always shown impeccable tax conduct and has never had tax problems in any other jurisdiction.
It continued: “She never exceeded the 183 days of presence in Spain required to be a tax resident.
“With no solid evidence to support the charges against her, she has been fiercely persecuted in the criminal and media spheres using unacceptable methods to damage her reputation and force her to come to a settlement agreement.
“Shakira has already paid more than 90 million euros for international income that has not been generated in Spain and for her international assets, without having a business centre in this country where she has never earned a significant income.”
Through the statement, Shakira also made it clear she felt the Spanish tax authorities were riding roughshod over her fundamental rights and privacy and were trying to damage her reputation "earned with the work of many years.”
According to the statement, she believes "her full innocence will prevail".
Pique jetted to Florida after a short stop in Barcelona following a romantic break in Abu Dhabi with his new love Clara Chia.
He whisked her away to a luxury hotel in the capital of the United Arab Emirates last Tuesday, a day before the Catalan beauty’s 24th birthday.
The trip coincided with the first meeting of the two lawyers who represented Shakira and Pique throughout their drawn-out child custody negotiations to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” on the former footballer’s first visit to Miami.
Clara Chia has decided to stay in Barcelona, although Shakira is said to have told her ex she was welcome to join him if he wished.
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However, it emerged recently that Clara allegedly has a brutal nickname for Shakira.
Journalist Roberto Antolin has claimed that Pique's new young lover refers to Shakira as "old" and a "witch", among other names.
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