“What’s happening with the law in Murcia?” “And with the businessmen and the judges?” asked out loud one of the demonstrators who took part in a new rally called this Tuesday at 8pm by feminist groups in front of the Palace of Justice in Murcia to denounce the conviction of the corruption network. minors through which both the rapists of teenage girls between 14 and 17 years old and the pimps who sought them out in schools or light discos.
A decade has passed and the excessive delay in the case has reduced the sentences by up to two degrees, meaning that the maximum sentence for each individual crime of these seven convicted businessmen is less than seven months in prison.
“Whores in prison!”, “Girls don’t touch each other!” and “Shame!” These are some of the slogans chanted by more than a hundred people gathered in a circle in front of the Provincial Court of Murcia. Ten years ago, “Operation Trunk” arrested up to 29 men aged between 30 and 86. In the end, seven of them were sentenced “independently and not as part of a pimping conspiracy”, they denounced when reading the manifesto. Next Sunday, October 6, at 8 p.m., there will be a new call for a rally in front of the Murcia Palace of Justice.
The regional prosecutor’s office will convene a meeting of prosecutors in the first days of October, during which they will decide whether to request the entry into prison of “some or all” of those found guilty of the pedophile network, before the hearing of this trial that will take place on October 7 and 8, during which the final resolution in this regard will be adopted. In any case, the decision adopted at the said meeting of prosecutors does not bind that of the judge, who will have the final say on whether the attackers and members of the network will ultimately go to prison.
Generally speaking, two criteria are usually taken into account when deciding whether or not a convicted person enters prison: firstly, that the individual is rehabilitated and, secondly, that the events continue to have a negative impact on the victim.
“In the short term, we don’t have great hopes because we know that this is a final sentence that cannot be annulled, but we hope that in this last hearing some of these sentences can be adjusted by observing what is happening on the street,” said Marta Latorre, spokesperson for the Fuste collective, holding up one of the banners.
“This type of punishment cannot continue to happen”
“We also find it positive that the Attorney General of the Region of Murcia, [José Luis Díaz Manzanera]opened the judicial process with a very clear reference to this case, which is not only short-term, but also warns that these compliance agreements cannot continue to be produced for this type of process, to which mitigating circumstances such as those of unjustified abuses the deadline cannot be applied in cases as sensitive as those of sexual exploitation.
“The sentence is clearly unjust and the public does not understand it. This is an appeal so that this type of conviction cannot continue to occur,” concluded this professor from the University of Murcia (UMU).
Ramona López, a member of the Feminist Political Forum of the region, said that “this sentence is a shame and nonsense for Murcian society. These men cannot be released by paying a fine of 500 or 1,000 euros to the victims, poor creatures who cannot even go out on the street or recognize themselves. The mothers must hide from them that these guys are released. Then, it will be them or others like them who will continue to prostitute minors and rape.
“It seems complicated to change the agreement reached, but at least there is the will of the prosecution to do so.”
The representation of these minors, who had no private accusation, depended entirely on the prosecutor’s office. “They never told us that we had to look for a lawyer,” Juana (pseudonym), the mother of one of the victims, told the newspaper. According to the mother, the young woman still does not know that a compliance agreement was reached and its content. He does not know that his rapists will not go to prison: “I don’t want him to know. It took me a long time for him to get up and go out on the street. “If she had to live all that again, she would collapse.”
“It’s a good deal, they’ll go out on the street and nothing will happen to them”
Juana denounced that the impunity of the case would encourage other exploiters of minors to continue their activity: “They have seen that it is a good deal to associate with a businessman, that they will go out into the streets and that nothing will happen to them. They have surely continued to act and will continue to act. The woman insists that “there are going to be more victims.” “I would not wish that on any mother.”
In the case of the child exploitation network, the highly qualified mitigating circumstance of excessive delay was applied, which meant that the sentences that initially ranged from 24 to 56 years in prison were finally from five months to two years. The Attorney General of the Region, José Luis Manzanera, stated at the opening of the judicial process that the passage of time cannot lead to the extinction, “even in part, of guilt, unless the statute of limitations of the crime has been reached. Neither organizational deficiencies nor work overload can justify, in the case of the injured party or the victim, an unjustified delay.
At the same time, Manzanera denounced “a permanent lack of personal resources” in justice. Let us recall that according to the General Council of the Judiciary, the average duration of procedures before the Provincial Court of Murcia is 5.7 months, while the national average is 2.8.
In order for the agreements to be limited, the prosecutor recalls that “a legal reform” would be necessary: ”A reform of Law 4/15, of April 27, which regulates the status of victim of a crime, is necessary to better protect the most vulnerable, it limits in these cases conformism and reductions of sentence, and it obliges the victims to be heard. The State Attorney General’s Office is preparing a circular on victims “that will surely contribute to better addressing this issue.”
Defense sources in the case of the girls trafficked into a minor network told the newspaper that “when an agreement is reached with the prosecutor, an agreement is reached on all conditions, including suspension.”
