After eight months in prison in the UK for financial offences, former tennis world number 1 Boris Becker was released on Thursday 15 December and immediately returned to Germany.
Boris Becker, 55 years old, “has served his sentence and is not subject to any criminal law restrictions in Germany”said his lawyer, Christian-Oliver Moser, denying in advance, “of privacy”any questions regarding “his residence”. The former champion would have arrived in Munich on Thursday, mid-afternoon, aboard a Cessna plane from private jet company Air Hamburg, according to the weekly. Der Spiegel. The plane was chartered by an audio-visual company, whose name has not been released, which paid a generous sum for him to tell his story, according to British media.
The Apple TV + platform will soon broadcast a documentary in which the former champion confides, but interviews given to other media could be in preparation.
Already sentenced in Germany in 2002
The six-time Grand Slam winner, who had lived in the UK since 2012, was found guilty in April of concealing or illegally transferring hundreds of thousands of euros and pounds to avoid settling his debts after he was declared bankrupt. He had been sentenced to two and a half years in prison by a court in London, but served only eight months.
According to the Press Association, Boris Becker was released on Thursday morning from Huntercombe prison, about 60 miles west of London, because he was eligible for deportation as a foreigner sentenced to more than twelve months in prison.
At the time of his bankruptcy in 2017, following a series of bad deals, the debts of the former tennis superstar, Wimbledon’s youngest winner at 17, were estimated at up to 50 million pounds sterling (58 million euros).
This case is not the first for Boris Becker, a restless sportsman who had lived in Monaco and Switzerland before settling in Britain. He had already had legal setbacks for unpaid debts with the Spanish judge, relating to work on his villa in Majorca, and with the Swiss judge for not paying the priest who had married him in 2009.
In 2002, the German courts sentenced him to a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 500,000 euros for around 1.7 million euros in tax arrears. This time he was notably accused of transferring hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling from a professional account to other accounts, notably of his ex-wives, of failing to declare property in Germany and of concealing an 825,000 euro loan and shares. in a company.
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Boris Becker, who contested all the charges, had on the other hand been acquitted of certain other charges, including those relating to the disappearance of his trophies. He had assured the hearing that he did not know where they were. Among the nine accolades creditors would like to get their hands on are two of his three Wimbledon trophies, two Australian Open trophies and his double gold medal at the 1992 Olympics. star explained during the trial, which was held from 21. March to April 8, still to have in his possession ” a lot “ of awards and memorabilia collected in fifteen years on the circuit, but some have disappeared. He had already sold some of his prizes at auction for 700,000 pounds (840,000 euros) to pay off some of his debts.