The five men who pushed a young woman into a doorway during the San Fermin fiestas in Pamplona and gang-raped her, have just been judged and sentenced on only a sexual-abuse charge.

The fact that the judges (it was a tribunal) consider that there was no ‘violence or intimidation,’ therefore it was a case of sexual abuse and not sexual aggression, has left many gobsmacked.

The five men have been sentenced to nine years imprisonment, which was half of what the Public Prosecutor recommended.

One of the judges even voted in favour of acquittal for all five, but did at least consider that they should have been found guilty of stealing her mobile.

Protests fuelled by indignation are already taking place outside the courthouse. When the sentence was made known, the crowd surged forwarded attempting to enter the courthouse but the police rushed back from their broken line to block the entrance and call in reinforcements. The judges and the defence lawyer for the five men have not been able to leave the building.

Editorial comment: this decision that there was no violence involved is exasperated by the fact that the judge in charge of the illegal-declaration-of-independence case in Cataluña claims that there was violence involved by the ex Catalan First Minister (when there was none) to justify the charge of rebellion against him.

But apart from this contradiction in the judicial system, the obvious question is, if the judges recognise that the sexual act was not consensual in their findings, then how can they interpret that there was no violence or intimidation?

(News: Pamplona, Spain)