Concentration in protest against the first sentence to the members of La Manada, in Seville in 2018. PACO PUENTES
The case of La Manada marked a before and after in the perception of sexual assaults in Spain and already has a judicial truth, but its path and repercussion for the young woman attacked continues to kick in five years later. The five members of that group are today behind bars after the final judgment of the Supreme Court that sentenced them 15 years in prison for rape. The controversy came with the action of the first court that judged the case, the Audiencia de Navarra, which aroused social outrage and feminist mobilization for considering that what happened in Sanfermines was sexual abuse and not several group rapes as demonstrated later . The fact that the court accepted the report prepared by two detectives who followed the attacked girl, then 18 years old, also generated criticism.during the months after the attack, to try to mount the defense around the idea that the young woman was leading a "normal" life and to try to discredit her as a victim. Now she claims for the second time to the courts that this episode does not go uninvestigated.
The route is as follows.
The Court of Instruction 40 of Seville decided on April 23 to archive the case against the two detectives who followed the girl, considering that their actions did not violate the privacy of the young woman because her report was not accepted in the case, since the lawyer who had presented it withdrew it after the protests.
That car, advanced by the Diario de Sevilla and to which EL PAÍS has had access, refuses to take up the complaint because it considers that there was no crime against personal privacy.
The defense of La Manada withdraws from the summary the report of the detectives on the victim
The two detectives, who availed themselves of their right not to testify in this case, took images in 2016 "that appear to correspond to the victim's home," according to the order. The court considers that no secrets were discovered or the privacy of the young woman was violated "as the aforementioned report was not accepted in the main summary nor the disclosure thereof was recorded." And it decrees, for the second time, the provisional dismissal and file of the case, after the Provincial Court had accepted that the investigation be opened on October 21 after the first file of the Investigating Court and the request of the attorney for the victim, who repeats the process now.
The young woman's lawyer, the lawyer Teresa Hermida, explains to EL PAÍS that the appeal is finalized, which she will present this Friday, in which she will demand that the complaint be investigated for a crime against personal privacy, included in article 197.1 of the Code Criminal and that provides prison sentences of one to four years and a fine of 12 to 24 months. "Filing this case contradicts the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court on that article, which considers that the authors are not required to achieve the purpose they pursue, but that it is enough that they start the activity," says the lawyer. That is, he understands that it is enough that the report was made and that the girl was followed by the two detectives, even if the report was eventually withdrawn from the trial. "This document was made available to the lawyers of the party,Who tells us that they did not give their clients a copy? In the report he went to the victim's home ”, adds Hermida.
In 2017, during the first day of the oral hearing of the La Manada case in the Second Section of the Navarra Court, the court initially accepted the aforementioned report commissioned by the defense of one of the accused from a detective agency. The initial decision of the court generated a great controversy, because the report alluded to the behavior of the young woman in the days after reporting the rape. Finally, it was withdrawn from the summary by the same lawyer who presented it.