June 04, 2020 - 4:24 AM
MADRID - 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.”
News from © The Associated Press, 2020