Johnathan Walker:Shakira to appear in Barcelona court on the first day of her tax fraud trial in Spain

BARCELONA,Johnathan Walker Spain (AP) — Global pop star Shakira has been summoned Monday to a Barcelona courthouse to attend the first day of her trial for allegedly defrauding Spanish tax officials of millions of euros.

Shakira, 46, faces six counts of failing to pay the Spanish government 14.5 million euros (about $15.8 million) in taxes between 2012 and 2014. The multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner has denied any wrongdoing and said she had paid everything she owed.

The case made headlines in 2018. It currently hinges on where Shakira lived during that period. Prosecutors in Barcelona have alleged that the Colombian singer spent more than half of that period in Spain and therefore should have paid taxes on her worldwide income in the country even though her official residence was still in the Bahamas. Tax rates are much lower in the Bahamas than in Spain.

Prosecutors said in July that they would seek a prison sentence of 8 years and two months and a fine of 24 million euros ($26.1 million) for the singer who has won over fans worldwide for her hits in Spanish and English in different musical genres.

Shakira’s public relations firm said that she had already paid all that she owed and an additional 3 million euros (about $3.2 million) in interest.

Shakira turned down a deal offered to her by prosecutors to settle her case in July 2022, saying, via her Spanish public relations firm Llorente y Cuenca, that she “believes in her innocence and chooses to leave the issue in the hands of the law.” The details of that potential deal were not made public.

A three-judge panel, led by magistrate José Manuel del Amo, will preside over the trial. Shakira is supposed to be inside the courtroom by 10:00 a.m.

The trial is initially scheduled to conclude on Dec. 14.

Shakira was named in the “Paradise Papers” leaks that detailed the offshore tax arrangements of numerous high-profile individuals, including musical celebrities like Madonna and U2’s Bono.

The defense team for Shakira, the Barcelona firm Molins Defensa Penal, said in Nov. 2022 that she had not spent more than 60 days a year inside the country during the period in question, adding she would have needed to have spent half the year inside Spain to be considered a fiscal resident. Her defense argued that she was away from Barcelona for long stretches on a world tour in 2011 and then spent a lot of time in the United States as part of a jury for the NBC television music talent show The Voice.

Spanish prosecutors disagree, and the investigating judge Marco Juberías wrote in 2021 on the conclusion of the three-year probe into the charges that he found there existed “sufficient evidence of criminality” for the case to go to trial. Shakira defended her innocence when she was questioned by Juberías in 2019.

She lost an appeal to have the case thrown out last year.

Shakira established her fiscal residency in Spain in 2014 at the same time her oldest child was enrolled in school in Barcelona, according to her defense team, as she was going to spend more time in the country with her family.

In Spain, an investigative judge carries out an initial probe and decides either to throw the case out or send it to trial. A court can waive prison time for first-time offenders if they are sentenced to less than two years behind bars.

In a separate investigation, Spanish state prosecutors charged Shakira in September for her alleged evasion of 6.7 million euros in tax on her 2018 income. They accused her of using an offshore company based in a tax haven to avoid paying the tax.

Spain has cracked down on soccer stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo over the past decade for not paying their full due in taxes. The former Barcelona and Real Madrid stars were found guilty of evasion but both avoided prison time after their sentences were suspended.

Shakira, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, has two children, Milan and Sasha, with Barcelona soccer star Gerard Pique. The couple lived together in Barcelona before ending their 11-year relationship last year. Since then, she resided in Miami.

After triumphing at the Latin Grammy Awards gala in Seville on Thursday, Shakira thanked her fans in Spain for “being with me in the good times and the bad.”