(Paris) French film star Isabelle Adjani is to be tried on Thursday in Paris for tax fraud and money laundering, suspected of having concealed a loan donation and of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal, which she vigorously contests.
His defense will request the postponement of the trial, the artist having “not been able to take the plane” from the United States because of an “acute illness which was certified by a New York doctor”, indicated his lawyers to AFP.
The 68-year-old actress was the target of an investigation since 2016 following the Panama Papers.
In the revelations of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), she was cited as the owner of a company in the British Virgin Islands.
The investigations did not show any offense linked to this offshore company, but revealed other suspicions which led to a summons from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office to court.
Firstly, 2 million euros ($2.8 million) transferred by Mamadou Diagna NDiaye, an influential Senegalese businessman, president of the Senegalese National Olympic and Sports Committee and member of the International Olympic Committee.
The actress is suspected of having passed off what was a donation as a loan, which would have allowed her to evade 1.2 million euros ($1.7 million) in transfer taxes.
“All the elements of the file and the investigation make it possible to demonstrate, without any ambiguity or possible doubt, that our client benefited in 2013 from a loan from a close friend,” assured her lawyers.
“This loan was the subject of a contract duly registered with the French tax administration upon its signature in 2013, as required by law. The loan is now at an advanced stage of repayment,” they added.
Isabelle Adjani is also accused of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal, thereby evading 236,000 euros ($340,000) of income tax.
“If there was a difference of assessment with the tax administration on the location of her tax residence in 2016 and 2017”, the actress “today has no tax debt, whether in France or in the Portugal and settled everything she owed,” according to her defense.
Flagship actress of the 1980s-1990s, Isabelle Adjani has become rarer on the big screen, but creates an event with each of her performances in the cinema, in the theater or on television.