Tennis superstar Boris Becker has returned to Germany following his deportation after being released from a UK prison where he was serving a sentence related to his 2017 bankruptcy, his lawyer said.
The 55-yr-old German six-time Grand Slam champion “was released from custody in England and has left for Germany today” his Berlin lawyer Christian-Oliver Moser said in a statement, reports RTE.
Moser declined to provide information about where Becker would be going, saying interview requests “will not be answered.”
The news magazine Der Spiegel said Becker landed in Munich on a chartered private plane that afternoon, but later retracted the report and said he was not on board, even though he was on the passenger list.
The daily newspaper Die Welt reported that Becker had landed in Stuttgart.
German national Becker was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in April for breaching bankruptcy rules by hiding £2.5million (€2.8million) in assets and loans to help pay debts avoid.
He was declared bankrupt in June 2017 after owing creditors £50m (€57m) over an unpaid loan of more than £3.4m (€3.4m) on his estate on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
A judge at Southwark Crown Court in south London told Becker, who has lived in Britain since 2012, that he will serve half his sentence in prison.
However, he was released this morning.
Becker was originally believed to be held at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London, near the All England Club in Wimbledon, where he won three titles.
He was then transferred to Huntercombe Sub-Security Prison near Oxford in southern England for foreign criminals awaiting deportation.
Becker qualified for deportation because he is not a British citizen and received a sentence of over 12 months.
The Sun newspaper said Becker’s mother Elvira, 87, told a friend her son’s release from prison was “the best Christmas present I could hope for”, reports RTE.
“I cannot wait to hold my beloved son in my arms,” she was quoted as saying, reports RTE.
According to media reports, he lived with friends in Frankfurt.
During his trial, Becker recounted how his career earnings were eaten up by a costly divorce from his first wife, Barbara, child support payments, and an expensive lifestyle.
But he insisted he had worked with trustees to protect his assets.
Judge Deborah Taylor disagreed, telling him she had shown no remorse or accepted his guilt.
“You […] have sought to distance yourself from your offending and your bankruptcy. While I accept your humiliation as part of the proceedings, there has been no humility,” she said, reports RTE.
Becker, with a shock of strawberry blonde hair, shook the tennis world in 1985 when, at 17, he became the youngest-ever Wimbledon men’s singles champion.
Nicknamed “Boom Boom” Becker for his wild serve, he repeated the feat the following year and won a third title in 1989.
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