• Courts Sandro Rosell blames his trial for tax fraud on "indiscriminate persecution" for his "connections with the independence movement"

  • Courts Sandro Rosell faces two years and nine months in prison for tax fraud

The ex president of the FC Barcelona,

​​Sandro Rosell,

has returned to dodge the jail.

The Criminal Court number 3 of Barcelona acquitted him of the crime of tax fraud for which the Prosecutor asked him for 2 years and 9 months in prison.

It was the first of the two trials that Rosell will have in just over a month since in October he faces five years in prison for alleged corruption between individuals in the signing of Neymar.

However, and as happened in the process that was followed in the National High Court, the court considers that Rosell has not committed any crime.

Both the Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office consider him responsible for defrauding the Treasury of 230,296 euros in 2012, using a company managed by himself to charge for his professional services for sports and real estate advice.

In 2019 Rosell returned the amount to the Tax Agency but denied that he had committed a crime

by proving his lawyers that the billed services existed.

"Rosell has reasons to feel mistreated by the justice system and by the Treasury", affirmed his lawyer

Pau Molins

and recalled that the advisory work for which he has been charged "has been done and has been declared", with which the only thing that can be can blame him is that he resorted to a "supposedly inadequate way to charge for services, through a sole proprietorship."

For this reason, he considers that Rosell suffers "persecution" for his "supposed connections with the independence movement", although the National Court rejected a complaint from the former Barça president in this regard a few days ago.

Rosell will face another trial for the signing of Neymar next October, a case in which the Prosecutor's Office asks him for five years in prison for corruption between individuals and fraud for the irregular signing of the Brazilian footballer by FC Barcelona in 2013.

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  • Neymar case