The La Manada rape case began with the gang rape of an 18-year-old woman on 7 July 2016 during the San Fermín celebrations in Pamplona, Navarre, Spain. The case drew intense public scrutiny as it called into question the definition of rape under Spanish law. 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. La Manada means "The pack" in Spanish.
After their arrest and trial, the men were cleared of sexual aggression charges and instead found guilty of sexual abuse because the prosecution could not prove they employed violence to subjugate the victim. Thousands took to the streets in Pamplona and Spain to manifest their disapproval of the verdict. 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.
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; Guerrero was given an additional two years for stealing the victim's mobile phone.
Background
In the early hours of 7 July, an 18-year-old girl reported a rape to the Police of Pamplona, perpetrated by five young men. The girl, who was going to her car to sleep, was accompanied during a part of the journey by the group of men she had just met. She alleged that they pushed her into a doorway of a building. While some committed the crime, others recorded it on their mobile phones. She was later abandoned in the doorway and her mobile phone was stolen.
The perpetrators shared the video of the attack in a WhatsApp group called "La Manada" ("the wolfpack"). Seven clips of this video were studied by the police in a 200-page report in which it is reported that the girl maintained a "passive and neutral" attitude, that her attitude was not "participatory" and that there was "humiliation and vexation" toward her.
After the offence, a couple in the street approached the victim and called the local Pamplona police. Following an interview with the victim, at least three police officers started a search for the perpetrators at 3.30 am. They followed the description provided and surveyed CCTV in the streets of central Pamplona. 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.
Trial
Charges filed
The prosecution was represented by the public prosecutor, the victim, the City of Pamplona, and the Government of Navarre. 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. It considered that there was "minimal violence" and "very serious intimidation that prevented the defense of the victim" surrounded by the five men, and that they left her helpless after the event because they took her mobile phone. The defendants argued that it was group consensual sex and she had made the accusation for fear that the video could be seen by other people.
Development
18 months after the attack, on 15 November 2017, the Court of Navarre took two diverging paths concerning evidence during the inquest; it unanimously accepted as evidence a report by a private detective commissioned by the defence to track the victim's whereabouts and behaviour following her assault, ultimately aimed at showing that the victim "held normal interactions" in social networks, and undermine her case. 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.