Colombian performer Shakira leaves court docket in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday. The worldwide pop star struck a cope with prosecutors as her trial on tax fraud costs was scheduled to start.

Joan Mateu Parra/AP

conceal caption

toggle caption

Joan Mateu Parra/AP

Colombian performer Shakira leaves court docket in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday. The worldwide pop star struck a cope with prosecutors as her trial on tax fraud costs was scheduled to start.

Joan Mateu Parra/AP

BARCELONA, Spain — After having maintained her innocence for practically 5 years, pop star Shakira struck a last-minute deal to keep away from the danger of going to jail on the opening day of her tax fraud trial in Barcelona on Monday.

Shakira instructed the presiding Justice of the Peace, José Manuel del Amo, that she accepted the settlement reached with prosecutors. She answered “sure” to verify her acknowledgement of six counts of failing to pay the Spanish authorities 14.5 million euros (about $15.8 million) in taxes between 2012 and 2014.

Below the deal, Shakira is to obtain a suspended three-year sentence and a high-quality of seven million euros ($7.6 million).

The trial, which might have included greater than 100 witnesses over the next weeks, was as a substitute known as off after simply eight minutes.

Prosecutors stated in July that they’d search a jail sentence of eight years and two months and a high-quality of 24 million euros ($26 million) for the singer, who has gained over followers worldwide for her hits in Spanish and English in several musical genres.

Shakira stated in a press release supplied by her public relations agency that she had wished to combat on however put her household, profession and peace of thoughts first.

“I’ve made the choice to lastly resolve this matter with the most effective curiosity of my youngsters at coronary heart who don’t wish to see their mother sacrifice her private well-being on this combat,” she stated. “I would like to maneuver previous the stress and emotional toll of the final a number of years and concentrate on the issues I really like, my youngsters and all of the alternatives to come back in my profession.”

The case hinged on the place Shakira, now 46, lived throughout that interval.

Prosecutors in Barcelona have alleged that the Colombian singer spent greater than half of that interval in Spain and due to this fact ought to have paid taxes on her worldwide earnings within the nation regardless that her official residence was nonetheless within the Bahamas. Tax charges are a lot decrease within the Bahamas than in Spain.

The a number of Grammy and Latin Grammy winner waved and blew a kiss to a small crowd of bystanders earlier than coming into the courthouse. She briefly sat in entrance of the panel of judges, flanked by groups of prosecutors on one facet and the protection on the opposite.

“This has been a troublesome choice that took time to achieve,” protection lawyer Miriam Firm instructed reporters. “Her authorized workforce had ready the trial and had been satisfied we might reveal her innocence, however the circumstances modified and (Shakira) opted to just accept the deal.”

Shakira turned down a deal supplied to her by prosecutors to settle her case in July 2022, saying, by way of her Spanish public relations agency Llorente y Cuenca, that she “believes in her innocence and chooses to go away the problem within the arms of the legislation.” The small print of that potential deal weren’t made public.

Shakira was named within the “Paradise Papers” leaks that detailed the offshore tax preparations of quite a few high-profile people, together with musical celebrities similar to Madonna and U2’s Bono.

Shakira’s public relations agency had beforehand stated that she had already paid all that she owed and a further 3 million euros (about $3.2 million) in curiosity.

The protection workforce for Shakira, the Barcelona agency Molins Defensa Penal, stated in November 2022 that she had not spent greater than 60 days a 12 months contained in the nation throughout the interval in query, including she would have wanted to have spent half the 12 months in Spain to be thought-about a fiscal resident. Her protection argued that she was away from Barcelona for lengthy stretches on a world tour in 2011 after which spent plenty of time in the US as a part of a jury for the NBC tv music expertise present The Voice.

Spanish prosecutors disagreed, and the investigating choose, Marco Juberías, wrote in 2021 on the conclusion of a three-year probe into the costs that he discovered there existed “ample proof of criminality” for the case to go to trial. Shakira defended her innocence when she was questioned by Juberías in 2019.

She misplaced an attraction to have the case thrown out final 12 months.

Shakira established her fiscal residency in Spain in 2014 on the identical time her oldest baby was enrolled at school in Barcelona, in accordance with her protection workforce, as she was going to spend extra time within the nation together with her household.

In Spain, an investigative choose carries out an preliminary probe and decides both to throw the case out or ship it to trial. A court docket can waive jail time for first-time offenders if they’re sentenced to lower than two years behind bars.

In a separate investigation, Spanish state prosecutors charged Shakira in September with alleged evasion of 6.7 million euros in tax on her 2018 earnings.

They accused her of utilizing an offshore firm based mostly in a tax haven to keep away from paying the tax.

Spain has cracked down on soccer stars similar to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo over the previous decade for not paying their full taxes. The previous Barcelona and Actual Madrid stars had been discovered responsible of evasion however each averted jail time after their sentences had been suspended.

Shakira, whose full identify is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, has two youngsters, Milan and Sasha, with Barcelona soccer star Gerard Piqué. The couple lived collectively in Barcelona earlier than ending their 11-year relationship final 12 months. Since then, she has resided in Miami.

After triumphing on the Latin Grammy Awards gala in Seville on Thursday, Shakira thanked her followers in Spain for “being with me within the good instances and the unhealthy.”