Alex Trelinski
A COURT has confirmed reduced jail sentences for two members of the so-called ‘Wolf Pack’ convicted of raping a woman at the 2016 Pamplona bull runs.
The Navarre Supreme Court(TSJN) backed a lower bench ruling made in February which cut prison terms by 12 months for Jose Angel Prenda Martinez and Jesus Escudero Domínguez.
They will now serve 14 years each behind bars.
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The TSJN rejected appeals lodged by the Navarre government and Pamplona City Council along with a private prosecution over the reductions.
The matter though can still be appealed to the the country’s national Supreme Court.
Lawyers on behalf of the two men took advantage of Spain’s sexual crimes law that created a loophole to get a year shaved off their sentences.
The provincial court in Navarre said in February that it was ‘legally bound’ to apply the reduction after another member of the group had his sentence trimmed by a year after a successful appeal to the Supreme Court last year.
The ‘Wolf Pack’ case led to protests and calls for changes in the law after the five men were initially convicted of the lesser crime of sexual abuse because the 18-year-old victim did not resist out of fear.
They were then give new sentences of 15 years each in 2019 and three years later a new law hit the statute book which classified all non-consensual sex as rape.
But because the new ‘yes means yes’ law carries a lower minimum sentence, it opened the door to convicted offenders to reduced prison terms or early release.
Over 1,000 imprisoned offenders had their sentences reduced by the end of 2023, forcing the government to change the law in regard to crimes committed from that year onwards.
