Spain: New prison terms for men in notorious sex abuse case
Columbia Basin Herald | UPDATED 5 years, 6 months AGO
MADRID (AP) — Four Spanish men in prison for raping a woman in a notorious case from 2016 have received new prison terms for a separate incident of sexual abuse the same year.
The men had a WhatsApp group named “La Manada,” or “The Animal Pack,” and are currently serving 15-year sentences handed down by the Supreme Court for raping an 18-year-old woman during Pamplona’s San Fermin festival in 2016.
The case triggered widespread women’s rights protests and soul-searching over the way sex crimes against women are handled by Spanish courts. Lower courts initially convicted the men of lesser crimes.
On Thursday, a court in the southern Cordoba province ruled that the men sexually abused a 21-year-old woman two months before the Pamplona case. The assault took place after they had driven her home from a night club, and while she was unconscious.
A video of the assault recorded by the men was key evidence in the trial.
Three of them received 2 years and 10 months of imprisonment for sexual abuse and crimes against the victim’s privacy, while the man who filmed and distributed the recording was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison. The sentences can be appealed.
A grouping of women against violence has called for an evening protest in Cordoba because they deem the sentence “shameful” and “insufficient.” Their slogan is “Without justice there is no equality.”