DEMONSTRATIONS across Spain and Europe have taken place today (Thursday) in protest over a Navarra court's having convicted a group of men who gang-raped a woman at a fiesta for 'sexual abuse' rather than 'rape'.
The five youths, dubbed La Manada ('The Herd'), have been sentenced to nine years each in jail for the attack on a girl – who is now aged 20 - at Pamplona's Sanfermínes bull-running festival in 2016.
According to the judge, there is insufficient evidence of 'sexual assault', or 'the violence necessary for a rape charge to apply'.
State prosecutors had called for 22 years and 10 months in prison for each, and the private prosecution called for 24 years and nine months.
The trial has attracted widespread attention in the press and on social media, and those waiting outside the court for the verdict were the first to protest.
Their outrage quickly spread to the rest of Spain, and demonstrations were held this evening in almost every region.
Scheduled protests took place in Alicante, Valencia, Castellón and Alcoi (Comunidad Valenciana), Zaragoza and Huesca (Aragón), Manacor (Mallorca, Balearic Islands), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands), Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Sevilla (Andalucia), Valladolid, Segovia, Salamanca, Palencia, León and Burgos (Castilla y León), Gijón and Oviedo (Asturias), As Pontes, Bertamiráns, A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, Vigo and Santiago de Compostela (Galicia), Santander (Cantabria), Bilbao (Basque Country), Barcelona (Catalunya) and Cartagena and Murcia (Region of Murcia).
The five men are from Sevilla, and the one described as the 'ringleader' of their gang – which members entered through initiation rites - José Ángel Prenda, now 29, is said to have already been sentenced to two years in jail for a burglary in Huelva in 2011.
The others are Ángel Boza, now 26; hairdresser Jesús Escudero; the eldest, ex-Army officer Alfonso Jesús Cabezuelo, now 30, and even a Guardia Civil officer, Antonio Guerrero.
It was the latter who stole the victim's mobile phone from her bum-bag while she was being raped, and admitted to taking it because he liked it.
Guerrero even told the judge that when he was engaged in sexual acts with the victim, 'she enjoyed it more' than he did.
The five recorded each other on their phones raping the young woman, who was just 18 at the time.
It is believed she got talking to them and may have been drinking, and they took advantage of her despite her pleas for them to stop.
In addition to the judges ruling that the absence of physical attacks such as punches, kicks or other actions designed to cause her pain or restrain her by extreme force, one of the magistrates – Ricardo González – even voted for all charges against 'The Herd' to be dropped, except the one for stealing the woman's mobile phone.
A female judge association, THEMIS, said the court verdict 'sends out a message of hopelessness and despair'.
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