La Manada rape case
Five men, including a member of the Civil Guard and another of the Spanish Army from Seville, filmed themselves repeatedly attacking the girl in the vestibule of an apartment building.
[3] The inquiry of the aggression uncovered footage shared on social media recorded by the perpetrators in Pozoblanco, Andalusia, showing an unresponsive girl lying on their van subject to groping and derision, which gave rise to another lawsuit.
[4] In a sentence handed down on 21 June 2019, the Spanish Supreme Court reversed the lower court and affirmed that the men were guilty of rape, remanding José Ángel Prenda, Jesús Escudero, Alfonso Jesús Cabezuelo, Antonio Manuel Guerrero and Ángel Boza to 15 years in prison;[5] Guerrero was given an additional two years for stealing the victim's mobile phone.
After tracking down the men of La Manada in the traditional bull running, the local and Navarrese police arrested them on the same day around noon in the city district of San Jorge.
The tribunal considered in the sentence that the victim's testimony was objectively credible, was consistent throughout the investigation, did not introduce "improbable elements" and did not have "spurious motives" to make the accusation.
By contrast, the tribunal rejected as evidence relevant to the lawsuit footage from 1 May 2016 in Pozoblanco, Andalusia, showing the La Manada men sitting in their van next to an unconscious 21-year-old girl, and speaking of "fucking the Sleeping Beauty", "the new Marta del Castillo", wondering whether she was dead, as well as citing burundanga, and chloroform.
[20] Despite being considered a serious offence, the Court of Navarre opted to leave the convicts free on parole until the sentence is final, arguing "inexistence of flight risk".
[21] Ahead of the Supreme Court's final decision on the case, the Data Protection Agency imposed on one of the assailants a €150,000 fine for distributing the footage of the victim during the assault.
[26] After notification of the final sentence, the Chief Bureau of the Civil Guard announced that it would initiate the procedure to remove Guerrero from the Spanish police force "as soon as possible".
[33] Joseba Asiron (EH Bildu), mayor of Pamplona at the time of the assault, criticised the sentence and considered the decision to release the convicts "highly distressing".
[35] Following the April 2018 conviction, the Civil Guard officer Antonio Manuel Guerrero and the army soldier Alfonso Jesús Cabezuelo were suspended from duty but continued to be paid 75% of their wage until all appeals had been heard.
[25] In response to the final sentence, feminist associations, Manuela Carmena, Pedro Sanchez, Irene Montero, Pablo Iglesias, Joseba Asiron, and Ines Arrimadas saluted the decision and the definition of the crime as rape.
[40] In late October, the convicts were declared persona non grata in Pozoblanco, Córdoba, hometown of the victim of the male group's alleged assault in 2016, now under investigation.
