It ratifies its request for 10 years in prison for the two former soccer players that the TSJ of Castilla y León kept convicted
MADRID, 23 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office (TS) has ratified its request to increase the sentence to 10 years in prison for the two former soccer players who were convicted of the ‘Arandina case’, stating at the same time that, if the Criminal Chamber does not agree to this, at least maintain the sentences of 4 and 3 years in prison that the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León (TSJCyL) issued, considering that the two proposals have a place in what is known as the ‘law of only yes it is Yes’.
In her report to the TS, to which Europa Press has had access, the prosecutor Paloma Abad pronounces herself at the request of the Criminal Chamber, which on November 17 summoned her to present allegations in relation to Organic Law 10/2022 of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, which entered into force on October 7.
Abad maintains the petition made in his appeal against the sentence handed down by the TSJCyL, demanding that the two former soccer players be sentenced to 10 years in prison. The prosecutor explains that, according to the new law, the events can be classified as a sexual assault on a child under 16 years of age, which article 181 of the Penal Code (CP) punishes with between 6 and 12 years in prison, a criminal fork that allows sustaining the 10 years
And, in the event that the TS rejects this main request, the prosecutor also argues that the new law allows the current sentences of C.C.S (‘Lucho’) and V.V.R (‘Viti’) to be maintained, who were sentenced by the TSJCyL to 4 and 3 years in prison, respectively, as perpetrators of a crime of sexual abuse of the former article 183 of the CP with the concurrence of a very qualified mitigating circumstance of closeness of age and maturity between the former players and the victim.
In this regard, the prosecutor indicates that, under the “only yes is yes” law, the facts fit into the reformed article 181, although in another section of the same that outlines a criminal arc of 9 to 12 years, which would fall between 2 years and 3 months and 4 years and 6 months when applying the aforementioned mitigation, for which the sentences of 4 and 3 years in prison could be maintained.
However, Abad claims that it is possible to amend the sentence of the TSJCyL, eliminating the mitigating circumstance that the regional court appreciated to increase the sentences to 10 years.
The Criminal Chamber plans to study on November 29 the appeals presented by both the Prosecutor’s Office and the popular and private accusations. These last two directly demand that the TS overturn the sentence of the TSJCyL, which acquitted a convicted person and reduced the prison sentences of ‘Lucho’ and ‘Viti’ to 4 and 3 years, and recover the one issued by the Provincial Court of Burgos, which sentenced the three former Arandina players to 38 years in prison.
This report from the Public Ministry, signed on November 22, came one day after the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, issued a decree for prosecutors to give “a uniform response” to the reviews of final convictions raised by the ‘law of only yes is yes’, establishing that they will not be modified when the sentence imposed can be handed down with the new penal framework, thus avoiding an “automatic” reduction of sentences.
The decree states that, “as a general rule, the review of final sentences will not proceed when the penalty imposed in the sentence is also likely to be imposed in accordance with the new legal framework resulting from the reform”, specifying that “automatic adaptation will be avoided of the penalties previously imposed in arithmetic proportion to the new punitive framework”.
Thus, it clarifies that the review will only proceed “when the penalty actually imposed exceeds in the abstract that which would correspond to be imposed in application of the precepts of the new criminal legislation.”
