Former Spanish FA boss, Luis Rubiales, who was at the heart of Spain’s ‘Kissgate’ scandal, was arrested by authorities on Wednesday, according to reports.
Detectives were waiting for him as he stepped off an Air Europa flight from the Dominican Republic, which landed at Madrid’s Barajas Airport just after 10.30am local time.
He is set to be taken to a police station where he is expected to be formally read his rights and handed a court summons as part of an ongoing corruption probe linked to his time as head of the Spanish FA and focusing on business deals thought to include one to hold the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia.
A judge is expected to question him in a closed court hearing in the coming days before being released on bail pending an ongoing probe.
The investigation, led by a judge based in Majadahonda on the outskirts of Madrid, is unrelated to the separate ‘Kissgate’ probe.
Last month, public prosecutors involved in that case said they were seeking a two-and-a-half year prison sentence over the ‘unwanted’ kiss Rubiales gave footballer Jenni Hermoso following the Spain’s Women World Cup final victory over England last August.
They said in an indictment sent to Madrid-based judge Francisco de Jorge they wanted him jailed for a year if he was found guilty at trial of sexual assault and another one and a half years for coercion linked to his alleged attempts to get the footballer to speak out in his defence following his infamous World Cup kiss.
This is happening around the same time Spanish public prosecutors asked for Rubiales to be arrested over alleged financial irregularities while he was in charge of the Spanish FA.
Rubiales’ home in the southern Spanish city of Granada was one of several properties searched on March 20 but he was already in the Caribbean.
Rubiales had already said he would return to Spain and insisted it would be on April 6 but overnight it emerged he had changed his travel plans.
He is thought to have avoided an embarrassing arrest, and a photo of him in handcuffs, after confirming his voluntary return ahead of and after a Spanish police operation in the Dominican Republic on Monday with assistance from local officers.
He rescheduled his return to Madrid after Spanish police investigators flew to the Caribbean and confiscated his phone and a laptop during a reported search of the property he has been staying at on the Caribbean island.
Prosecutors in Spain are pushing for Rubiales to receive a 2.5-year prison term over ‘Kissgate’. Rubiales has denied any wrongdoing in both the ongoing corruption probe and the ‘Kissgate’ case.
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