Spanish media report that the brother-in-law of Spain's King Felipe VI is already in prison to begin serving a sentence of nearly six years for fraud and tax evasion

MADRID (AP) — Spanish prison authorities say that the brother-in-law of Spain’s King Felipe VI has begun serving a nearly six-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.

An official with the Interior Ministry’s prison management division said Inaki Urdangarin arrived Monday morning at a prison near Avila, about 100 kilometers north of Madrid. The official spoke anonymously, in line with internal rules.

Urdangarin, a 50-year-old former Olympic handball medal winner married to the king’s sister, Princess Cristina, is the closest person to the ruling Bourbon family to be imprisoned.

He was convicted to five years and 10 months in prison for embezzling about 6 million euros ($7 million) by exploiting his position in the royal family to obtain public contracts.

Cristina was fined 136,950 euros ($158,600) as a beneficiary of the scheme. </s> The brother-in-law of Spain's king turned himself in to authorities on Monday to serve a five-year, 10-month prison sentence for crimes including tax fraud and embezzlement, a prison system spokesman said.

Inaki Urdangarin signed himself into the Brieva prison in Avila at around 8:00 am (0600 GMT). He had been given five-day deadline last Tuesday to appear at a penal institution of his choosing.

Urdangarin is married to Princess Cristina, sister of King Felipe VI.

Urdangarin was found guilty in February last year of using royal connections to overcharge regional governments through public contracts to stage sports and tourist events and with tax fraud.

The retired Spanish handball player appealed the sentence before the Supreme Court, which cut the sentence slightly after overturning a part of the original ruling by the Mallorcan Court.

He may appeal the Supreme Court's ruling before the Constitutional Court. </s> MADRID — Iñaki Urdangarin, the brother-in-law of King Felipe VI of Spain, was sentenced to prison on Friday in a business fraud case that represented a major embarrassment to the country’s monarchy, even though the king’s sister, Princess Cristina, was found not guilty.

A regional court on the island of Majorca sentenced Mr. Urdangarin to six years and three months in prison, far less than the 19 and a half years sought by the prosecution, for his business dealings relating to the disbursement of millions of dollars of public funds for sporting events.

In January 2016, Princess Cristina became the first member of Spain’s royal family to stand trial in modern history, after the authorities began looking into Mr. Urdangarin’s business practices in 2011. The police raided the offices of his nonprofit foundation, the Nóos Institute, as part of an investigation initially prompted by huge cost overruns for the construction of a cycling track on Majorca.

Mr. Urdangarin — who was found guilty on several counts, including fraud, document falsification, tax evasion and influence peddling — was among 18 defendants on trial. He and his business partners were accused of embezzling about 6 million euros, or $6.4 million at current exchange rates, that had been distributed by regional officials for organizing sports events. </s> MADRID, June 18 (Reuters) - The brother-in-law of Spain's king has turned himself in to authorities to serve a five-year, 10-month prison sentence for crimes including tax fraud and embezzlement, a prison system spokesman said on Monday.

Inaki Urdangarin signed himself into the Brieva prison in Avila at around 8:00 am (0600 GMT). He had been given five-day deadline last Tuesday to appear at a penal institution of his choosing. (Reporting by Raquel Castillo; Writing by Paul Day; Editing by Catherine Evans) </s> Spanish media report that the brother-in-law of Spain's King Felipe VI is already in prison to begin serving a sentence of nearly six years for fraud and tax evasion

MADRID (AP) — The brother-in-law of Spain’s King Felipe VI has begun serving a nearly six-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion, Spanish prison authorities said Monday.

An official with the Interior Ministry’s prison management division said Inaki Urdangarin arrived Monday morning at a prison near Avila, about 100 kilometers north of Madrid. The official spoke anonymously, in line with ministry rules.

Urdangarin, a 50-year-old former Olympic handball medal winner married to the king’s sister, Cristina, is the closest person to the ruling Bourbon family to be imprisoned.

He was convicted to five years and 10 months in prison for embezzling about 6 million euros ($7 million) by exploiting his position in the royal family to obtain public contracts.

Cristina was fined 136,950 euros ($158,600) as a beneficiary of her husband’s crimes.

The corruption scandal helped erode the image of the Spanish royal family and prompted the abdication in 2014 of Juan Carlos I, who ceded the throne to Felipe.

Urdangarin had been given five days to voluntarily turn himself in to begin serving his sentence after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal earlier this month.

The ministry official described the Brieva prison chosen by Urdangarin as a small facility with less than 100 inmates, most of them women.

The prison has a small module for men, but authorities could choose to send him elsewhere for security or internal organization reasons, the official said.

Spain’s Royal House has said that it respects judicial decisions and King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia have not publicly commented on the result of the appeal.

The royal couple is on an official visit to the United States. On Monday they are scheduled to meet entrepreneurs and students in San Antonio, Texas, before traveling to Washington D.C. for a meeting Tuesday with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. </s> Iñaki Urdangarin was found guilty last year of embezzling millions of euros between 2004-2006 from a non-profit foundation he headed in Majorca.

Last week Spain's Supreme Court rejected his appeal and handed him a sentence of five years and 10 months in prison.

Urdangarin, just as any citizen, was allowed to choose where he wanted to serve his sentence.

Princess Cristina's husband is not the first man to serve in the Brieva prison. The former director of the Civil Guard Luis Roldán, convicted in 1998 to 31 years for embezzlement offences, was also held in the same male unit.

Brieva prison is located 100 kilometres north of Madrid and, despite it being a prison for women, it has four cells reserved for male inmates.

The prison is one of the smallest in Spain and was built in 1989.

It is the first time in modern Spanish history that a monarch's relative has gone to prison. The case caused an uproar in Spain, which contributed to the decision of King Felipe VI's father Juan Carlos I to abdicate in 2014. </s> The brother-in-law of Spain's king entered prison on the outskirts of the ancient central city of Avila early Monday to begin serving a jail sentence of five years and 10 months for corruption, the country's penitentiary service said.

Iñaki Urdangarín, who is married to Princess Cristina, was allowed the option of being able to pick the prison of his choice and selected the rural Brieva penitentiary, located seven kilometers (4.3 miles) east of Avila, which is normally used to house women offenders but has a secluded unit in which men can serve their sentences. </s> The brother-in-law of Spain's King Felipe VI has begun serving a nearly six-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion, Spanish prison authorities said Monday.

Inaki Urdangarin, who is married to King Felipe's sister Princess Christina, arrived Monday morning at a prison near Avila, about 62miles north of Madrid.

Urdangarin, a 50-year-old former handball player and Olympic medal winner, exploited his royal connections to overcharge regional governments for public events contracts, embezzling some 6million euros (£5.25million).

He was convicted to five years and ten months in prison in February last year, and his wife Princess Cristina was fined 136,950 euros (£120,000) as a beneficiary of her husband's crimes.

The corruption scandal aided in the erosion of the public image of the Spanish royal family and prompted the abdication in 2014 of Juan Carlos I, who ceded the throne to Felipe.

The retired Spanish handball player appealed the sentence before the Supreme Court, which cut the sentence slightly after overturning a part of the original ruling by the Mallorcan Court.

He may appeal the Supreme Court’s ruling before the Constitutional Court.

Urdangarin had been given five days to voluntarily turn himself in to begin serving his sentence after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal earlier this month.

The ministry official described the Brieva prison chosen by Urdangarin as a small facility with less than 100 inmates, most of them women.

The prison has a small module for men, but authorities could choose to send him elsewhere for security or internal organization reasons, the official said.

Spain's Royal House has said that it respects judicial decisions and King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia have not publicly commented on the result of the appeal.

The royal couple is on an official visit to the United States. On Monday they are scheduled to meet entrepreneurs and students in San Antonio, Texas, before traveling to Washington D.C. for a meeting Tuesday with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. </s> In a wide-ranging tax fraud case that captivated Spain, Princess Cristina was found not guilty Friday of being an accessory to fraud but her husband was convicted and sentenced to more than six years in prison.

A panel of judges ruled that Cristina, the 51-year-old sister of King Felipe VI, will be required to pay over $280,000 in fines because the court considers that she indirectly benefited from the fraud.

Her husband, Inaki Urdangarin, was found guilty of evading taxes, fraud and various other charges. He was sentenced to six years and three months in prison and a fine of $545,000.

Urdangarin, a 49-year-old former handball Olympic medalist, can still appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but the public prosecutor announced Friday that it would request a hearing to decide whether he needs to await developments in jail. He is still free so far.

The trial centered on accusations that Urdangarin used his former title, the Duke of Palma, to embezzle about $6.6 million in public funds for the nonprofit Noos Institute.

The provincial court in Palma de Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands, found six other people in the trial guilty, including Urdangarin's business partner and a former regional president of the Balearic Islands. Ten people in all, including Cristina, were absolved by the court.

In a country mired with corruption scandals in politics and business, Spaniards paid close attention to the "Noos case" since the first signs of Urdangarin's involvement emerged six years ago. As the scandal unfolded, Former King Juan Carlos' decision to abdicate the throne in 2014 was seen as an effort to allow his son Felipe to restore the monarchy's credibility.

When his sister Cristina was indicted, King Felipe cancelled her titles of Duchess of Palma, granted by their father in 1997 on the occasion of her wedding. She and Urdangarin are no longer invited to any official events by the Royal House.

Felipe and Queen Letizia made no immediate comment Friday on the court's rulings during a visit to a museum in Madrid with the Hungarian president. A spokesman for the Royal House told Spanish media they respected the courts' independence.

Inigo Mendez de Vigo, the minister who speaks for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government, said Friday that it "shows that nobody is above the law and that the rule of law works."

The Noos Institute organized conferences and sports-related events. Among the companies used by the institute to hide funds was Aizoon, a real estate consulting company jointly owned by Cristina and Urdangarin that paid for family holidays and wine bills, according to court documents.

Urdangarin ran Noos Institute with a partner, Diego Torres, who was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in jail in Friday's ruling. Torres' wife and Cristina, for whom an anticorruption group was asking for eight years of jail each, were absolved by the court.

A lawyer with Cristina's defense team, Miquel Roca, said the princess was "satisfied for the acknowledgement of her innocence" but she was still convinced that her husband wasn’t guilty.

"If we believed in the judicial system when the princess was made to sit in the dock, I think citizens can trust in it when she's absolved," Roca told reporters in Barcelona.

The couple lived in a mansion in Barcelona for years with their four children, but since the investigation started they moved the family to Switzerland. On Friday, reporters waited outside their house in Geneva, hoping in vain to get a glimpse of the couple.

Spaniards had been waiting for the judges' verdict since the trial ended in mid-2016. On Friday, reactions in the street were mixed, with some people still expressing doubts over whether the law in Spain is the same for everyone.

"I think the prosecutor wasn't trying to prosecute the crime but rather to protect the alleged criminal," said Miquel Puig, a 62-year-old economist in Barcelona.

Maite Mila, a 52-year-old lawyer, said she believed the princess "benefited from what her husband did."

"We have to respect the decision of the justice but I think they did it wrong," Mila said.

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Iñaki Urdangarin, brother-in-law of King Felipe VI of Spain, enters prison to serve the sentence of almost 6 years for the Nóos case.