UK deports Boris Becker to Germany

Disgraced former tennis superstar Boris Becker is due back in Germany after being deported following his release from a British prison where he served a sentence relating to his 2017 bankruptcy, his lawyer said.

The 55-year-old German six-time Grand Slam champion "was released from custody in England and has left for Germany today," his Berlin-based attorney Christian-Oliver Moser said in a statement.

He added Becker has "served his sentence and is not subject to any penal restrictions in Germany".

Moser declined to provide information on where Becker would arrive and said any requests for interviews "will not be answered".

News magazine Der Spiegel said Becker landed in Munich in the afternoon on a chartered private plane but later withdrew the report, saying that he had not been on board although he was on the passenger list.

Daily Die Welt said Becker had landed in Stuttgart.

German national Becker was jailed for two and a half years in April for flouting insolvency rules by hiding £2.5m (€2.8m) of assets and loans to avoid paying debts.

He had been declared bankrupt in June 2017, owing creditors £50m (€57m) over an unpaid loan of more than £3 (€3.4m) on his estate on the Spanish island of Majorca.

A judge at Southwark Crown Court in south London told Becker, who has lived in the UK since 2012, that he would serve half of his sentence in prison.

However he was released this morning.

Becker was initially reported to have been held at Wandsworth Prison in southwest London, near the All England Club at Wimbledon where he won three titles.

He was then transferred to the lower-security Huntercombe prison near Oxford, southern England, for foreign criminals awaiting deportation.

Becker qualified for removal as he is not a British