Spanish princess Cristina de Borbon has arrived in court as proceedings in a landmark fraud trial that became a lightning rod for anger at institutional corruption get under way.
Cristina, the sister of Spain's King Felipe VI, arrived at a court in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, shortly after 8 a.m. for preliminary hearings ahead of a wider fraud trial examining the activities of her husband's Noos foundation. A judge ordered Cristina to trial in December 2014 over allegations she was an accessory to tax charges linked to her husband, the former Olympic handball player Inaki Urdangarin. The couple arrived together in the same car.
The trial will mark the decisive chapter in the probe into the Noos Institute, which has become an emblem of how corruption permeated the highest levels of Spanish society as the country headed into a financial crisis. Urdangarin is on trial for offenses including embezzlement and influence trafficking in relation to his role at Noos, a nonprofit institute that received public funds.