Spain's Supreme Court has sentenced Iñaki Urdangarin, husband of infanta Cristina, to five years and ten months in prison for the Nóos scandal. After this verdict on his appeal, he will now have to enter prison. The court has upheld his conviction, but reduced his sentence by five months.
The final verdict of the court leaves the former duke of Palma on the verge of entering prison, although he could still avoid it by applying for a reprieve, which would allow him to ask for the sentence to be suspended, or by appealing to the Constitutional Court.
It was expected that the Supreme Court would announce its definitive sentence in the case today, after considering the appeals presented against the original sentence from a Balearic Islands court.
The alleged scheme is that Urdangarin used his position to win public funding out of proportion to the stated uses of the money, with the king's brother-in-law and his co-defendants profiting from the difference.
Misuse of public funds, malfeasance and fraud
In the end, the judges sentence Iñaki Urdangarin to five years and ten months in prison for misuse of public funds, malfeasance, fraud, two tax offences and influence peddling. This is a five-month reduction to his previous sentence, however, having absolved him of the charge of falsifying public documents. The court believes his involvement in such forgery hasn't been proven.
The sentence imposed on Urdangarin is lower than that the prosecutor in the case, Pedro Horrach, had called for. The ruling, however, upholds the accusation that contracts with the Nóos Institute represent a crime of ongoing misuse of public funds.
As for the king's sister, the original court acquitted her of criminal involvement, but did order her to pay a 265,000€ fine (£230,000, $310,000) for "civil responsibility".
Likewise, the judges sentence Diego Torres, Urdangarin's former business partner, to five years and eight months for misuse of public funds, malfeasance and fraud, but acquit him of influence peddling, money laundering and forgery. They also find Ana María Tejeiro and the infanta Cristina of Bourbon as having benefitted unknowingly from their husbands' misuse of public funds and fraud, but not their tax offences.
The court ratifies the other verdicts of the Palma de Mallorca Provincial Audience, including the sentence of three years and eight months in prison for former president of the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas.