Infanta Cristina 'blackmailed' by Manos Limpias over private prosecution

KING Felipe's sister Cristina de Borbón (pictured) may have been blackmailed by anti-corruption pressure group Manos Limpias ('clean hands') before it brought a private prosecution against her for her alleged role in her husband's tax fraud and public fund embezzlement case.

Described as a far-right crusader, Manos Limpias has been investigated recently for various similar cases involving demanding money in exchange for dropping prosecutions against high-profile companies and public figureheads.

According to the Infanta Cristina's solicitor, head of the group, Miguel Bernad, offered to scrap the law suit against the former Duchess of Palma if La Caixa and Sabadell banks paid him €3 million.

The Infanta declined, and has gone on to make history as the first Royal by blood to have appeared in the dock.

An ongoing case involving her husband Iñaki Urdangarín, who lost his title of Duke of Palma as a result, could see him and his business partner Diego Torres jailed for up to 20 years.

They set up a non-profit foundation to organise sports and entertainment events on behalf of the regional governments of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, but are believed to have inflated their invoices, laundering the surplus through companies with no known activity, and signing up family members and home cleaning staff as employees of these.

Bernad's arrest on Friday came at the same time as chairman of the banking consumer group AUSBANC, Luis Pineda, who is accused of the same offences of extortion as Bernad.

They are also thought to have avoided paying taxes on their earnings.

Both of them are reported to have had close relations with neo-fascist outfits some 30 years ago, around the time Bernad set up Manos Limpias and Pineda created AUSBANC.

The now-defunct Caja Madrid, and the BBVA bank, both said they were blackmailed into paying for advertising in AUSBANC's publications on pain of the association's writing articles slamming their practices.