In just ten minutes, the Colombian artist appeared before the Barcelona Court this Monday to ratify the agreement that her defense reached at the last minute with the Prosecutor’s Office and the private accusations made by the State Attorney’s Office and the Generalitat, an agreement that, according to Shakira in a statement, asked for her own children.

In the midst of the unusual expectation unleashed at the Palau de Justicia – where journalists and justice officials were fighting for the best places from which to spot the diva – Shakira arrived dressed in pastel pink and white and with dark sunglasses that He only took it off to smile at the press while answering how he was: “Here we go.”

Already inside the courtroom, she listened in silence to the terms of the agreement stated by the presiding judge of the court and with a brief “yes” and “that’s right” she ratified the pact, which she herself had previously signed, along with the accusations.

Fine of 432,000 euros to replace prison

The pact involves the payment of 7.3 million euros in fines, far from the 23.7 million that the Prosecutor’s Office initially requested for the singer, and reduces the eight years in prison that the public ministry proposed for the performer to three. for six crimes against the public treasury.

However, the singer has agreed to pay 432,000 euros to replace the prison sentence imposed – 400 euros for each day she is free from being in jail -, without the condition of not committing a crime again in the coming years, as happens in the cases of suspended sentences.

An issue that is not trivial, taking into account that she has a second case open in the courts of Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) following another complaint from the Prosecutor’s Office, which accuses her of defrauding more than six million in personal income tax and taxes. of 2018 assets, using a corporate network based in tax havens.

And to this litigation is added the appeal that is pending in the contentious-administrative chamber of the National Court for the 60 million euros that he paid to the Treasury for the taxation of the profits from his 2011 tour, a case that conditioned the negotiations between his defense and the Tax Agency to clear the agreement signed today.

With the agreement, the singer, who has benefited from a highly qualified mitigating circumstance because she returned the evaded 14.5 million plus another three million in interest to the Treasury, assumes that she pretended that she had tax residence in the Bahamas to avoid paying her taxes to the Spanish Treasury. between 2012 and 2014, despite the fact that she already lived most of the year in Barcelona with her ex-partner, the footballer Gerard Piqué.

New criticisms of the Treasury

Despite this recognition of the crimes with which she was accused – an indispensable condition of compliance – the artist has once again charged against the Tax Agency, as she already did when, in July 2020, she rejected an agreement with the accusations and decided to risk it in the trial while proclaiming himself a victim of the “persecution” of the Treasury and the “intransigence” of the Prosecutor’s Office.

In a precise measurement of time, her communication agency -Llorente y Cuenca- has sent an extensive statement to the media just when the singer was verbalizing her yes to the pact before the court, to emphasize that if Shakira accepts it it is for the good of his children and his career.

“I felt ready to face a trial and defend my innocence,” the singer insists in her statement, after remembering that she had “two options, to continue fighting until the end,” mortgaging her peace of mind and that of her children, her career and of the things you like, or close this chapter of your life “looking forward.”

In that sense, she has confessed that her own children have asked her to reach an agreement, so she has opted to focus on the most “important thing in her life” and avoid the “weariness” of seeing her mother in a judgment.

“I have to choose my battles and the most important one for me now is to do everything so that my children live a full life and focus on what is really important: seeing them grow and spending time with them,” he emphasizes.

The agreement puts an end to a criminal process that was opened in 2018, when the Prosecutor’s Office filed its first complaint against the singer, and avoids a trial for which, over twelve sessions, up to 117 witnesses were scheduled to parade, including her ex-partner Antonio de la Rúa, several musicians and a Michelin star chef, as well as her hairdressers and her fitness or Zumba teachers.