Spain's Princess Cristina and her husband have sold their Barcelona mansion, reportedly worth nearly seven million euros ($8 million), in a fraud scandal that has embarrassed the monarchy, a court said Thursday.

Cristina, sister of King Felipe VI, and her husband the former Olympic handball player Inaki Urdangarin, were forced to sell the house to pay a court bond for their liability in the case.

The junior party in the coalition that runs Catalonia said Wednesday that its three ministers were pulling out of the regional government due to disagreements over its push to break away from Spain.

Regional interior minister Ramon Espadaler said he and the two other ministers from the Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC) in the 13-member Catalan regional government were stepping down.

The bodies of 32 Spanish victims of the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps in March were flown back to Spain on Monday aboard a specially fitted plane.

The MD11 transport plane, operated by Germanwings parent company Lufthansa, took off from the southern French city of Marseille en route to Barcelona at 4:00pm local time (1400 GMT).

Behind the walls of a former tobacco factory, about 100 people excitedly discuss their plans for Madrid city hall, which from Saturday will be run by protesters from the "Indignados" (Outraged) movement, in an unprecedented experience for Spain.

The meeting was held on a hot afternoon at the Tabacalera -- a self-run cultural center covered in street art in Lavapies, a scruffy Madrid neighborhood that is a meeting point for "Indignados" activists.

Leftist activists from the Indignados (Outraged) protest movement that grew out of Spain's economic crisis took charge Saturday of city halls in Madrid and Barcelona, after thrashing the ruling conservatives in local elections.

Former judge Manuela Carmena, a communist in her youth, was sworn in as mayor of the Spanish capital early on Saturday, while 41-year-old activist Ada Colau was set to become Barcelona's first female mayor later in the afternoon.

Spain's Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled that a symbolic independence referendum held last year in the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia was illegal.

The regional government of Catalonia pressed ahead with the mock vote on November 9 even though the court had ordered that it be suspended while it considered a request from Spain's central government that it be declared unconstitutional.

The first bodies from the Germanwings plane that was deliberately crashed in the French Alps were repatriated to Germany on Tuesday.

A special flight operated by Lufthansa carried the remains of 44 Germans, among the 150 onboard when the jet crashed on March 24, from the southern French city of Marseille to Duesseldorf in western Germany.

A Spanish judge on Tuesday shelved a criminal investigation into the killing of a Spanish cameraman by a U.S. tank shell in Iraq in 2003 after Spain placed limits on judicial powers in international cases.

Spanish judicial authorities had sought the arrest and questioning of three U.S. soldiers suspected of involvement in the death of Jose Couso, who was killed by a shell that crashed into a Baghdad hotel.

Spanish police said Monday they had dismantled a trafficking ring they said used voodoo rituals -- including animal sacrifice -- to force Nigerian women into prostitution in Spain.

Six traffickers were arrested and four of the victims freed, police said in a statement.

Spain's new anti-austerity party Podemos and the Socialists are set to strike a tactical alliance this week designed to oust the right from power in Madrid city hall and other regions ahead of a year-end general election.

Pablo Iglesias, the pony-tailed leader of Podemos, met with Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday night, their first face-to-face since the fast-growing Podemos party was founded in January 2014.