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Vatican to probe 251 paedophilia cases in Spanish church: report

A Spanish newspaper investigation that found 251 alleged paedophiles inside the country's Catholic church has been sent to the Vatican which has opened an internal inquiry, media reported Sunday.

Published: 20 December 2021 09:21 CET
priest repents
Since 2001, the Vatican has already received 220 sexual assault complaints. Photo: Valentine Chapuis/AFP

“The church has opened a major investigation, unprecedented in Spain, into 251 members of the clergy and a number of lay organisations accused of sexually assaulting minors which this newspaper has been investigating for three years,” El Pais wrote.

The accusations and witness testimonies stretching from 1943 to 2018 were detailed in a report handed to the pope on December 2, said the daily, which has begun to publish the first anonymised accounts on its website.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which is responsible for investigating such allegations, was unable to confirm the opening of investigations to AFP Sunday.

The Spanish Episcopal Conference “reiterates its commitment and willingness to undertake an investigation into all cases of abuse” and “encourages all victims to submit their complaints”, the organisation said in a statement Sunday.

Since 2001, the Vatican has already received 220 sexual assault complaints, a spokesperson for the Spanish Episcopal Conference told AFP.

READ ALSO: ‘No desire for truth’ in Spain’s Catholic church over child sex abuse

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CRIME

Spanish court shelves Shakira tax fraud case

A court in Spain said Thursday it has shelved a probe into another alleged tax fraud by Colombian pop star Shakira, putting an end to her legal woes in the country where she once lived.

Published: 9 May 2024 13:47 CEST
Spanish court shelves Shakira tax fraud case

Prosecutors had opened the case in July, accusing her of using a network of companies, some of them based in tax havens, to cheat the tax office out of €6.6 million ($7.09 million) in 2018, including interest and adjustments. A month later, the so-called Queen of Latin Pop paid €6.6 million to settle the debt.

But on Wednesday prosecutors recommended that the probe be dropped due to “insufficient evidence” and the court investigating the case agreed.

While the court said the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer had committed “irregularities” in her 2018 tax return, it added that “irregularities are not enough to constitute a (criminal) offence against the tax authorities”.

It added that Shakira did not have “the intent to defraud the tax authorities”.

In a separate case, Shakira in November struck a last-minute settlement with prosecutors on the opening day of her trial over a separate tax fraud charge involving income she earned between 2012 and 2014.

In that case prosecutors had sought a jail sentence of over eight years for the singer. They accused her of defrauding the tax authorities of €14.5 million in a case that centred on how much time she was living in Spain.

Shakira denied the charges, saying she only moved to Spain full time in 2015.

By the time the case came to trial, she had already paid €17.45 million to settle her outstanding tax debt, prosecutors said at the time.

‘Emotional toll’

On the day it opened, that trial — which had been due to run for three weeks and hear from some 120 witnesses — was quickly concluded after she agreed to pay a fine of nearly 7.8 million euros.

At the time she explained she had settled “with the best interest of my kids at heart” because she needed “to move past the stress and emotional toll of the last several years” and focus on her career.

Shakira, 47, now lives in Miami with her two sons after splitting from Barcelona star defender Gerard Pique.

He was himself convicted of tax fraud in 2016 and ordered to pay €2.1 million in fines and arrears. Spain’s Supreme Court in 2021 annulled his conviction.

Last year, Shakira’s superstar Argentine producer Bizarrap won the Latin Grammy for song of the year with a track taking a swipe at Pique — who has since retired from football — in which she accuses him of leaving her with a “debt to the tax office”.

“People on my team tried to convince me to change the lyrics, but I’m not a UN diplomat. I am an artist and, above all, a woman,” Shakira told Spanish celebrity magazine ¡Hola!

Spain has in recent years cracked down on celebrities, including football stars such as Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, for unpaid taxes.

Both players were found guilty of evasion and received prison sentences that were waived for first-time offenders.

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