MADRID: Spain’s Supreme Court was set to examine a case yesterday so controversial it sparked mass protests after five men accused of gang-raping a woman were convicted of the lesser crime of sexual abuse.
The country’s top court will look at the crux issue at the heart of the case: was it rape in the eyes of Spanish law, which requires evidence of intimidation or violence?
The men were accused of raping the woman, then aged 18, at the entrance to an apartment building in Pamplona on July 7, 2016, at the start of the popular week-long San Fermin bull-running festival.
The five filmed the incident with their smartphones and then bragged about it on WhatsApp where they referred to themselves as “La Manada,” or “The Pack”.
In April 2018, they were each sentenced to nine years in jail for sexual abuse but judges acquitted them of the more serious offence of sexual assault.
They ruled there had been no violence or intimidation and that the victim did not resist or fight back. One of the three judges had argued that the men should be fully acquitted.
That decision — and the subsequent release on bail of the defendants — sparked nationwide protests.
Since the verdict, the Spanish government has announced it wants to reform the criminal code to stipulate that a woman must give her explicit consent for sex.
That would be based on a tough new Swedish law that states a person can be accused of committing rape if the other person has not given explicit consent, even if there is no violence or threats. – AFP
