Spanish government denies Iñaki Urdangarin's open prison regime, but he will not have to serve sentence in prison

MadridThe Ministry of Home Affairs has denied the open prison regime of Iñaki Urdangarin, the brother-in-law of Spanish King Felipe VI, although it has made his release from prison more flexible and, in fact, will allow him to spend the remainder of his sentence in a social integration centre in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). Urdangarin will continue to leave prison daily to volunteer at the Don Orione Home, located in Pozuelo de Alarcón. In addition, he can spend one weekend a month at home and will not have to return to the women's prison in Brieva (Ávila), where he was serving a 5 year and 10 month sentence for the Nóos case since June 2018.

This is not the first time that Urdangarin has aspired to the semi-freedom regime thanks to the positive assessment of the Brieva prison treatment board which on 26th November proposed to grant it unanimously. He had already done so in July and, despite the fact that State Prisons also ruled against the open prison regime, a judge of prison surveillance in Castile and Leon endorsed the king's brother-in-law's regime. The Palma Court, however, ended up denying it at the end of September.

Now the procedure could be repeated if Urdangarin's defence appeals against the denial of the regime to the Prison Supervision Judge. His situation, however, will change immediately, since he will leave prison and settle in a social integration centre closer to Madrid.