Malevolent prince misrepresented debts (10)

I believe the answer is:

pernicious

'malevolent' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'prince misrepresented debts' is the wordplay.
'misrepresented' indicates an anagram.
'debts' becomes 'ious'.
'prince' with letters rearranged gives 'pernic'.
'pernic'+'ious'='PERNICIOUS'

(Another definition for pernicious that I've seen is " Destructive and harmful".)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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