Case closed . The latest resolution of the Supreme Court rejecting a defense appeal against the conviction for the abuse of a young woman in Pozoblanco (Cordoba) has put an end to the judicial journey of the five young Sevillians who make up that crazy group calling itself La Manada. Jose Angel Prenda, Jesus Escudero, Alfonso Cabezuelo, Angel Boza and Antonio Manuel Guerrero no longer have pending matters with the Justice. They only have to serve their respective sentences . In these more than five years that have passed since that fateful night of the Sanfermines in 2016, different courts have issued up to eleven resolutions (ten sentences and the last ruling of the Supreme Court mentioned) that have resulted infive sentences in which all or some of the members of the group have been punished for behaviors ranging from the seriousness of the violation of the Sanfermines to the theft of sunglasses, passing crimes against privacy, for having recorded videos or taken photos with abuses and spread them through various Whatsapp groups.
Matters related to the Pack have come twice to the Supreme Court and twice to the Superior Court of Justice of Navarre, although three provincial courts have also intervened and issued sentences (Navarra, Seville and Cordoba).
The latest resolution has been a decision of the Supreme Court on June 24 -although it has been known this week- in which the High Courtrejected the appeals filed by the defense of the four members of La Manada –Angel Boza was not charged– who were sentenced to sentences ranging from two years and ten months in prison to four years and six months in prison for the abuse of another young woman in Pozoblanco in May 2016, just a few months before the Sanfermines rape.
These five convictions have made the members of the Pack accumulate sentences ranging from 15 years in prison imposed on Angel Boza Florido -the only serious conviction is that of the rape of Pamplona, although he has been sentenced to pay two fines for having stolen glasses in San Sebastian and Seville – until the age of 23 and one month in prison for former civil guard Antonio Manuel Guerrero: Convicted of the rape in Pamplona, the abuses in Pozoblanco, as well as for the theft of the mobile phone from the victim of the Sanfermines and for recording the videos and taking photos that they later spread through WhatsApp.
Former soldier Alfonso Jesus Cabezuelo is another of the members of the Pack with the highest accumulated sentences: 21 years and one month in jail. The other two youths, Jose Angel Prenda and Jesus Escudero Dominguez, have sentences of 19 and a half years in prison and 17 years and ten months, respectively.
The sum of these sentences does not represent that they will spend all these years in prison, since now the sentences must be liquidated and as they serve part of them they will be able to avail themselves of the different penitentiary benefits, such as permits and in their time access to a third degree.
In fact, the letter that one of the five convicted, Jose Angel Prenda, sent to the Navarre Court showing his “total regret” for the Pamplona violation and requesting that the acknowledgment of the crime be recorded in his disciplinary file has also recently come to light.
This request for forgiveness has been produced after the treatment board of the Puerto III prison denied this condemnedtwo exit permits that he had requested, given that the Pack has already served a quarter of the sentence for the rape –they have been in prison for more than four years–, with which, according to article 154 of the Penitentiary Regulations, they could request ordinary exit permits .
Recognition of the crime, awareness of the harm caused by it and repentance, with forgiveness of the victim or the offended, are not requirements that appear in the law to obtain benefits or access a progression of grade, although it is true that They are elements that are valued by the treatment boards at the time of granting them.
Treatment boards also consider completion of any of the “sex offender treatment programs”, aimed at people convicted of this type of crime against sexual freedom. The Pack will therefore have to undergo this treatment program, which is voluntary, if it wants to gain access to these prison benefits in the future.
The case of the Pack marked a before and after in the response of the courts to gang rapes because, although experts assure that these gang rapes have always existed, numerous cases have been known in recent years.
According to the historic ruling of the Supreme Court, the Pack escaped a sentence of almost 80 years, given that the magistrates lamented the “incorrect” legal qualification that was made in his day, by qualifying the rape as a continuing crime, when according to the magistrates of the High Court could have been sentenced for five crimes, one as the perpetrator and another four as necessary collaborators in the violation committed by the other four convicted.
In any case, there is no doubt that the penalties to which they have finally been sentenced are not light at all, nor are the acts for which the Pack ended up behind bars.
