La Manada free and back on the streets

The men convicted of sexual abuse and collectively known as La Manada have been released from jail. After paying 6,000 euros bail, the five friends from Seville who were accused of gang raping an 18-year old woman at Pamplona’s San Fermín festival in 2016, but who were sentenced to nine years in prison for sexual abuse rather than rape, were allowed to walk free while they await a final judgement in the case.

Just after 6pm, José Angel Prenda, Jesús Escudero and Angel Boza left the prison in Pamplona and quickly left the area in a car to avoid the large number of journalists who had gathered outside. About two hours later, the other two members of the group, who being held in Madrid’s Alcalá Meco prison were also released.

The court’s decision to free the men while their appeal is processed caused protests all over Spain on Thursday evening, when the news became known. After many protestors directed their ire at the Spanish government, the executive took the unusual step of announcing that it did not agree with the court’s decision to free the men, and that it would look into tightening the bail laws.

In a news conference following Friday’s cabinet meeting, spokeswoman, Isabel Celaá, said the government was “surprised” by the decision as the “general rule is that convicted criminals remain in custody at least until they have served half of their sentence.” What’s more, Celaá said, the executive considers the facts of this case to be “very serious, extremely so.”

In justifying the decision to release the men, the court said that the risk of the men fleeing “had lessened considerably” due to “the fact they had lost their anonymity”, which along with the social pressure “made it just about unthinkable” that they might re-offend.