A court in the northern Navarra region where the gang rape took place said it was “legally bound” to reduce their prison terms from 15 to 14 years because another member of the group had his sentence cut by a year after an appeal to the Supreme Court last year.
In 2016, the five young men gang-raped an 18-year-old woman at Pamplona’s famous bull-running festival, filmed the attack and shared images of it on a WhatsApp group their called “la Manada” or “the Wolf Pack”.
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The case triggered large street protests and pressure for legal reform after the five defendants were initially convicted in 2018 of sexual abuse instead of the more serious offence of sexual assault, which includes rape, since the court found no proof they had used physical violence.
Prosecutors appealed and their sentence was raised the following year from nine to 15 years.
Spain’s leftist government reformed the country’s criminal code in 2022 in response to the case to define all non-consensual sex as rape.
Although the so-called “only yes means yes law”, which was spearheaded by Spain’s divisive former Equality Minister Irene Montero, raises the sentence for gang rape or chemical submission, it reduces both the maximum and minimum sentences in cases with no aggravating circumstances.
READ MORE: Why is Spain reducing prison sentences for rapists?
Hundreds of convicted offenders have used this loophole to apply for their sentences to be revised since the law came into effect.
In Spain, a jail term can be retroactively modified if changes to the penal code benefit the convicted offender.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez apologised for the harm caused to victims of sexual offences by the loophole and his government amended the law to affect crimes carried out from 2023.
