The Supreme Court approved the acquittal of Xabi Alonso on tax evasion charges

The Criminal Chamber rejected the State Prosecutor’s Office’s appeal against the decision of the Madrid High Court of Justice, which confirmed the ex-San Sebastian footballer’s second acquittal this summer. two of the tax advisors A crime against the Public Treasury.

The facts focus on the contract that Xabi Alonso transferred on August 1, 2009. Use of image rights To the Kırcaali company based on the Portuguese island of Madeira. According to the Lawyers’ Office, this was a simulated legal transaction designed as a strategy to defraud the Spanish public treasury, thus obscuring the correct taxation of income linked to the footballer’s image rights.

The Supreme Court distinguishes this process from other cases involving professional football players convicted by the Barcelona Court, and in some of these cases the high court upheld the conviction, explaining: they are incomparableBecause they were convicted in the first place and Alonso was acquitted.

The Supreme Court recalls that decision limits arising from objection It is used as a procedural tool to convert an acquittal into a conviction and, in fact, there are evidentiary inferences that may be open to an alternative trial. However, the rejection of the Madrid Court, which led to the denial that the contract signed by Alonso in favor of Kırdzali was filtered by any kind of simulation, and especially the TSJM’s rejection of fraud as an element of intellectual reinforcement. Operations under factum “close off any possibility of review that would reverse this Chamber’s decision to acquit.”

The decision also explains that “if the liquidation document submitted by the taxpayer reveals all the profits obtained in any economic activity and submits a proposal to the Public Treasury.” tax route that audit services consider to be incorrect“This disagreement of interpretation, which refers to ‘how much’ and not ‘what’, cannot be the source of a criminal process.”

Similarly, the judges respond to the Legal Profession as follows: “No abnormality can be detected in the court’s attribution of greater credibility to the expert opinion submitted by the defense than to the so-called official expert opinion.” “Furthermore, this should be seen as a sign – unfortunately rare – of closeness to the principles of contradiction. right of defense “These act as real legitimating sources of the criminal process,” they add.