Charlie Smith
THE infamous gang behind the sex attack that rocked Spain has been spared prison.
Three of Spain’s top judges made the ruling after the five men were already given nine years for a vicious sex attack on an 18-year-old woman at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona.
All from Sevilla, the men were spared rape sentences and convicted of the lesser charge of ‘sexual abuse’ after having sex with the woman in July 2016.
But now, justices have told the ‘La Manada’ or ‘Wolf Pack’ gang, as they are known, that they are provisionally free to go, but the five will still serve their nine-year sentence.
Their ruling dismisses the request for provisional prison by the victim, as well as the City Council of Pamplona and the Government of Navarre.
Magistrates voted with a majority of two to one, saying, ‘sufficient reasons have not been provided to modify the personal situation of the defendants’.
Those arguing for immediate imprisonment of the group that includes police and soldiers, were told their ideas about the gang fleeing were ‘weak’.
It was decided that situations of the sex attackers ‘have not changed’ and that their legal obligations have been ‘met punctually’.
Ricardo González and Raquel Fernandino were the pair to uphold the freedom of La Manada, while José Francisco Cobo voted for imprisonment.
Since the vicious gang were cleared of rape for their attack in Pamplona, a national legal debate surrounding the sexual abuse of women has erupted in Spain.
It comes as an uncle and nephew were yet another two men to be cleared of rape in November.
The pair forced a girl into sex and a separate sexual act, who they had earlier met at a bar and taken to a nightclub.
