Shakira loses the last battle to avoid trial for tax fraud

Shakira, at an event in New York last week. EDUARDO MUNOZ (REUTERS)

Shakira has lost the last chance she had to avoid trial for tax fraud.

The Barcelona Court has knocked down the appeal of the Colombian singer and has confirmed the judicial order that concluded that there were indications that she had defrauded 14.5 million euros to the Treasury.

Although the possibility of an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office remains open, Shakira has not been able to avoid the defendants' bench and file the case.

The judicial investigation opened against Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, real name of the singer, concluded the summer of last year.

The judge held that, between 2012 and 2014, the singer was already a tax resident in Spain and, therefore, she had to pay her taxes here, which she did not do.

Shakira has maintained from the beginning that during those years she lived in the Bahamas and that she visited Spain sporadically.

That thesis was dismantled by the Treasury inspectors, who investigated her private life in Barcelona with the soccer player Gerard Piqué and concluded that her usual place of residence was Spain.

Shakira's defense filed an appeal to insist that there is no direct evidence that Shakira spent "more than 183 days in Spain" during those years, a requirement that the law establishes for a citizen to be considered a tax resident.

The singer also recalled that she does not have any debt with the Spanish Treasury, since she has paid the amounts that have been claimed.

Now, the Tenth Section of the Barcelona Court has dismissed the appeal and, although it does not go into the substance of the matter, it considers that there are sufficient indications for these discrepancies to be resolved in the oral trial.

The Barcelona Economic Crimes Prosecutor's Office was waiting for that resolution to present its indictment.

There, she will detail the prison sentences that she will foreseeably request for Shakira for three crimes of tax fraud.

The possibility that the artist and the public ministry reach some kind of agreement -accept the facts and pay a fine in exchange for a reduction in the sentence that can avoid imprisonment- is still open.

For now, however, Shakira's defense remains firm in her position that she has not committed any crime and that she will fight in court.

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