sentenced

Ancelotti, one of the most successful managers in football history, received a one-year suspended sentence and large fine.

A Spanish court sentenced Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti to a one-year suspended prison term for tax fraud when he was Real Madrid manager in 2014.

The Madrid court also fined Ancelotti 386,000 euros ($452,187) during Wednesday’s proceedings.

Spanish prosecutors accused Ancelotti of defrauding the state of 1 million euros ($1m) in 2014 and 2015.

State prosecutors sought a prison sentence of up to four years and nine months on two counts of tax fraud.

But the former Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain boss, who no longer lives in Spain, will not serve jail time because the sentence is less than two years and he has no criminal record. In Spain, a judge has the discretion to suspend a sentence of less than two years for first-time offenders.

In March 2024, prosecutors accused Ancelotti of having used shell companies to hide his true earnings. They claimed Ancelotti, for example, used one company that lacked “any real [economic] activity” in the Virgin Islands as part of an alleged scheme.

Carlos Sanchez, Ancelotti’s press officer, told The Associated Press that the coach “will not make comments for now.”

Brazil’s football confederation (CBF) said in a statement that it was following the case.

The Italian coach is the latest in a string of major football profiles to face a crackdown by Spanish authorities over unpaid taxes, although none have actually been sent to prison so far. That list includes star players Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, as well as Jose Mourinho, another former Madrid coach.

The CBF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ancelotti, who turned 66 last month, is one of football’s most successful coaches. He is the only coach to have won the Champions League five times, three with Madrid and twice with AC Milan, and the only coach to have won domestic league titles in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France.

The former Italy midfielder left Real Madrid to become Brazil boss at the end of last season after a rare trophy-less campaign in the 2024-25 season.

Bangladesh’s interim government says the conviction shows commitment to justice.

Bangladesh’s self-exiled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to six months in prison for contempt of court by the country’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT).

The three-member tribunal, headed by Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder, handed down the verdict in Hasina’s absence on Wednesday. The sentence will take effect upon her arrest or voluntary surrender, Chief Prosecutor Muhammad Tajul Islam told reporters.

Hasina, who fled to India following a student-led uprising last August, faces several charges. This marks the first time she has received a formal sentence in any of the cases.

Shakil Akand Bulbul, a senior figure in the Awami League’s banned student wing, Chhatra League, was also sentenced to two months in the same case.

The contempt charges stem from an audio recording in which Hasina was allegedly heard saying, “There are 227 cases against me, so I now have a licence to kill 227 people.” A government forensic report later confirmed the tape’s authenticity.

The ICT was established in 2010 by Hasina’s own government to prosecute war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 independence war.

It has since been repurposed by the interim government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, to pursue allegations of rights violations and corruption under Hasina’s rule.

The tribunal has issued three arrest warrants for Hasina, including charges of crimes against humanity linked to the crackdown on the student-led protests last year, which toppled her government. Her Awami League party remains banned, with ongoing trials against former officials.

Hasina’s supporters insist the cases are politically motivated, describing them as part of a broader effort to silence opposition. However, the caretaker government argues the legal process is necessary to restore public trust in the country’s institutions and ensure accountability.

Investigators described finding decaying bodies stacked atop each other throughout a dilapidated, bug-infested building.

A judge in the US state of Colorado has handed a funeral home owner, who stashed 191 dead bodies on his premises, a 20-year prison sentence for cheating customers and defrauding the federal government.

Federal prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence for Jon Hallford, the owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado, where he and his wife, Carie Hallford, stored bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sent families fake ashes.

At Friday’s hearing, US District Judge Nina Wang said the circumstances and scale of John Hallford’s crimes, as well as the emotional damage to families he inflicted, warranted a longer sentence.

“This is not an ordinary fraud case,” Judge Wang said.

Investigators were called to the dilapidated, insect-infested building in the small town of Penrose, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Denver, in 2023 after reports of an “abhorrent smell” coming from the property.

At trial, investigators described finding the bodies stacked on top of each other and being unable to move into some rooms because they were piled so high with human remains.

FBI agents also had to put boards down so they could walk around the crime scene and above the bodily fluid that had pooled on the ground.

The morbid discovery by investigators in 2023 revealed for the first time to many families that the ashes they had received from Return to Nature were fake. Court documents showed Hallford had sent families urns filled with dry concrete mix, and in two cases, the wrong body had been buried.

In separate charges, Jon Hallford has pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court. He is scheduled to be sentenced for those charges in August.

Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in September. That same month, she will attend her next hearing in the state case, in which she’s also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.

COVID-19 fraud

At Friday’s hearing, Jon Hallford was also jailed for defrauding the US federal government out of nearly $900,000 in emergency financial assistance provided to Americans dealing with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a news statement, the US Attorney’s Office in the District of Colorado said the Hallfords had “defrauded the Small Business Administration through fraudulent COVID-19 loan applications”.

Federal prosecutors said the Hallfords syphoned the money and spent it, along with customers’ payments, on SUVs worth more than $120,000, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, and luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co.

In addition to his jail sentence, Jon Hallford was also “ordered to pay $1,070,413.74 in restitution for a conspiracy to commit wire fraud”, according to the District of Colorado.

The District of Colorado statement said the Hallfords had “collected more than $130,000 from grieving families for funeral services that were never provided”.

“Instead of ensuring proper disposition of the remains, Hallford allowed bodies to accumulate in various states of decay and decomposition inside the funeral home’s facility,” it said.

According to an order suspending the home’s registration as a funeral establishment, Jon Hallford had claimed when the bodies were discovered “that he practises taxidermy” at the property.

In court before the sentencing, Jon Hallford told the judge that he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact on people’s lives, but “then everything got completely out of control”.

“I am so deeply sorry for my actions,” he said. “I still hate myself for what I’ve done.”