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Scandal-hit Princess set for Swiss move

George Mills/The Local/AFP
George Mills/The Local/AFP - [email protected]
Scandal-hit Princess set for Swiss move
Princess Cristina (left) is reportedly very happy with her Swiss-based job offer as it will take the family out of the limelight. Photo: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP

Spain's Princess Cristina, the youngest daughter of King Juan Carlos, is moving to Switzerland with her children at the end of the summer in a move that should take some of the pressure off her scandal-hit family.

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Princess Cristina will move to Geneva with her four children but not with her husband Iñaki Urdangarin.

The separation is professional and not personal, Spain´s ABC newspaper cited sources closing to the family as saying on Wednesday.

The king's oldest daughter will coordinate the programs run by Spain's charitable La Caixa Foundation in conjunction with various United Nations agencies based in the lakeside city.

The job offer has reportedly been very well received by Cristina as it will take her family out of the limelight.

Cristina and her husband and Urdangarin have been under immense pressure because of a long-running corruption scandal involving a charitable sports foundation.

The case is centred on allegations of embezzlement and influence peddling against Cristina's husband, former Olympic handball player Iñaki Urdangarin, and his former business partner Diego Torres.

The pair are suspected of overbilling regional governments to stage sports and tourism events, and then diverting money to the non-profit Nóos Institute, which Urdangarin chaired from 2004 to 2006.  

In April, Cristina was summoned to appear in court to answer questions about her husband's business dealing.

The court summons — the first for a member of Spain's royal family — was later appealed.

In early May judges spared her for the time being from being called into court to be questioned as a formal suspect.

But they said she may yet be summoned to the court in Palma de Mallorca on the Balearic Islands in another branch of the affair: a tax and money-laundering case also linked to her husband. 

Neither Cristina nor Urdangarin had been charged with any crime.

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