ONE of the five Pamplona gang rapists granted bail has been arrested again for attempting to steal a pair of sunglasses from a shop in his home city, Sevilla, before trying to run over two security guards in a car he was driving despite being under a ban.
Ángel Boza, who – along with four other members of the street gang which calls itself La Manada, or 'The Herd' – was released from custody earlier this summer amid mass international protests, was arrested on the Avenida Menéndez Pelayo following a police chase.
He had been pursued on foot by the two guards as far as the car park, then driven off after attempting to mow them both down – apparently deliberately.
The security personnel needed medical attention for their injuries, but these turned out not to be serious.
It is likely Boza will have wasted his €6,000 bail payment, as the offences of attempted theft, causing personal injury with intent, dangerous driving, resisting arrest and driving whilst banned will see him back behind bars.
After La Manada was released, feminist groups in Sevilla distributed notes around shops, bars and restaurants saying women in the city would not give their custom to anyone who served 'rapists' and invited them to put signs up on their premises saying they would not attend to sex offenders.
All five were cleared of rape, which carries up to a 20-year jail sentence, on the grounds that their 18-year-old victim had not struggled or expressly refused sex, nor felt any pain because she was very drunk when lured into a doorway after the bull-runs during Pamplona's Sanfermines festival.
They were instead sentenced to nine years for the lesser offence of 'sexual abuse'.
One magistrate called for them to be fully acquitted of any sexual crimes and only charged in the case of one of the men who stole the young victim's mobile phone because, in his own words, 'he liked the look of it'.
Women judges in particular have condemned the gang's lenient treatment, saying it sets a dangerous precedent for cases of date rape, sexual assault of women in an inebriated or indisposed state, or those who either 'froze' out of fear or self-preservation or opted to remain passive to avoid greater injury.
