Shakira must return to Barcelona to face one of the most complicated drinks of her life. If in 2022 she had to assume that the love story that united her with Gerard Piqué for eleven years was inevitably coming to an end, in 2023 her problems are just as serious or more serious: accused of six tax offenses, she faces sentences of close to eight years imprisonment and fines that do not fall below 24 million euros. The scheduled date for the start of the oral hearing is November 20, as we learned yesterday. However, it is a provisional mark on the calendar. We are going to see why and what is her position before the judicial horizon that awaits her.
The Provincial Court of Barcelona has reserved a fork for 12 or 15 sessions between the end of November and the middle of the following month in order not to postpone the hearing until 2024. At the moment, according to the information handled by La Vanguardia, it is a ' save the date', that is, a reservation in order to set a definitive date. Shakira's stay in Barcelona will not change, in any case: already installed with her children in Miami, the artist will only appear on the day of her statement. This circumstance is not a privilege or an exception, but a perfectly consolidated practice. For example, with Neymar Jr, prosecuted for an illegal criminal offense related to his signing, the same thing happened.
For your peace of mind, Shakira is represented by the renowned Barcelona criminal lawyer Pau Molins, who assumed her defense in November 2022. In her most media baggage, the defense of the Infanta Cristina in the Nóos case, Sandro Rosell, Santi Vila and Félix stands out. Millet, among other large judicial processes. And she will need the singer of all her potential. This is a delicate process due to the international stature of the defendant, and cumbersome because the sum of witnesses that the four parties – her defense, the Generalitat's lawyer, the Public Prosecutor and the State Attorney – have proposed to testify exceeds the number of 200 names. In addition, not a few of them are foreigners, so balancing schedules seems like a Herculean feat.
As this newspaper has been able to learn from judicial sources, the Court has requested the parties to reduce their respective lists for testimonial evidence on their own motion; depending on what the final names are, each party may review the list of the others, cross out matches and, where appropriate, change some witnesses for others. A bobbin lace that foresees a lot of work in the coming days.
At the end of 2018, the Colombian star made herself available to the investigation: between the tax inspection and the opening of the criminal investigation, Shakira deposited the 14 million euros that the AEAT claims plus interest, in total some 17 million. Far from assuming with this no guilt of any kind, since he has always maintained that during the years in question he was not a Spanish resident, he made a move in a gesture of goodwill that would also work as a mitigation for damage repair in the event that they painted in the future coarse, according to experts consulted by this newspaper and that the prosecution has assessed in its qualifications document.
If you are acquitted, that amount will be returned to you, however, if things go wrong... The accusations demand a heavy fine plus imprisonment - the Prosecutor's Office asks for a sum of almost eight years and the State Attorney's Office for something more than five– for a total of six tax offenses related to property taxes and IPRF during the years 2012, 13 and 14.
It is true that the risk of imprisonment exists, but the Colombian decided to assume it a long time ago and trust in justice: the alternative would be to reach an agreement with the accusations, pay a large sum and eliminate any possibility of jail. How much would that hypothetical amount amount to? The Prosecutor's Office claims about 24 million, the State Attorney's Office a little more than 26 million euros and the court would decide the final amount. However, this extreme would mean accepting that she committed a crime and the artist prefers to bear the so-called "news penalty" and risk it by pursuing her acquittal than admitting criminal offenses that she claims she has not committed and becoming guilty forever.
In any case, if everything went wrong and she was sentenced for any of the crimes prosecuted (or for all of them), the artist would still have the possibility that the court would be generous, consider the corresponding mitigations, apply a maximum of two years for each penalty and, having no criminal records, avail themselves of the path of conditional remission and be released.
