Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- The woman who was allegedly raped by four young men in a park in the tourist area of Puerto Rico, in Gran Canaria, on the night of February 26, 2021, assured this Wednesday before the Court of Las Palmas that the four defendants penetrated her, after intimidating and harassing her.
In the trial that was held that Wednesday against the four defendants, who face sentences of 58 to 61 years in prison each, the victim has denied that it was consensual relations, as the defendants have defended before the court, except for one who has assured that he “was never with her” nor did he participate or see what the other three were doing.
The prosecutor, who rejects the versions of the defendants as contradictory and intended to evade responsibility for the facts that he imputes to them, has defended that there is sufficient evidence to impose the sentences that he requests for understanding that they committed crimes of sexual assault; thesis to which the defenses are opposed, who have demanded an acquittal.
The Prosecutor’s Office, in its conclusions, has explained that his request for conviction is based on the testimony of the victim, “credible and coherent”, in that of the two Civil Guard agents who went to the place where the events occurred and arrested to the defendants, and in the rest of the evidence carried out.
Among the evidence, he cited the injuries found on both wrists, on the inside of the thighs and on one knee of the complainant, “compatible with that of a rape”, according to the forensic doctor who attended her.
Thus, for the defendant Aziz L., he has maintained the sentence that he initially claimed of 61 years for two aggravated crimes of sexual assault (those directly attributed to him) and three crimes of sexual assault (those allegedly committed by his companions).
The other three, Mohammed EB, Hicham EA and Hamza EZ, are also exposed to 58 years in prison, which the prosecutor has requested from the beginning as alleged perpetrators of an aggravated crime of sexual assault and four of sexual assault.
Mobile messages
The four defendants are at the scene, as they have admitted that they had been living in the park for days because they had been kicked out of the hotel where they were staying after arriving on the island by boat, the prosecutor told the Second Section court , to which he has also highlighted that in a mobile message that one of the defendants was intervened in, they refer to the fact that they were lucky that night because they had been able to “bust an Englishwoman”.
Other messages alluding to the alleged aggression were found on the mobile in which it was said that “they had hunted a girl” and called her a “bunny”, according to the Civil Guard agent who prepared the report on the content of the phone conversations, after being translated from Arabic.
The victim has told the court that she was at a birthday party that day and that before returning to her apartment she went for a walk in the park, where she was first approached by Aziz L. who took her by the hand and led her to a place where they had blankets on the floor, where he forced her to lie down.
There they took away the mobile phone she was wearing and her glasses, according to her story, in which she maintains that this defendant was the first to penetrate her and then the other three followed until Aziz L. finally penetrated her again, whom she recognized because of the strong smell of hashish and marijuana that it gave off.
According to the Civil Guard who investigated the case, Aziz L. had already been arrested as the alleged perpetrator of a sexual assault on the beach in Puerto Rico.
The instructor and head of the Arguineguín Judicial Police Unit explained that the victim reported the events on February 28, but that they were already inquiring about a group rape because he had gone to buy the morning-after pill at a pharmacy and the pharmacist had informed the Civil Guard.
Likewise, he has indicated that he was in a “post-shock” situation and that, at first, he did not want to denounce, and that his version seemed “very credible.”
Lawyers for the four defendants have rejected the prosecutor’s conclusions and have argued that there is insufficient evidence to charge them with such high sentences.
The defense speaks of “disinhibition” by alcohol
Aziz L.’s defense has stressed that the valid evidence is the one presented in the trial and that the events did not happen as the prosecutor alleges, and that the victim’s alcohol intake, which she herself admits, led her to lose inhibitions , which is “one of the known effects” that it produces, since it has insisted, like the defendants, that it was consensual relations.
In addition, he has affirmed that the form of recognition of the other three defendants is “contaminated” by showing the victim only his three photographs and not an album with more and has stressed that the injury report of the hospital does not include injuries, among other considerations that he has exposed to affirm that there are more than reasonable doubts about the crimes that are charged.
It was about consensual relationships and the peripheral facts demonstrate this, the lawyer added.
Hicham EA’s lawyer has indicated that, in any case, the only crime that his defendant could be charged with is omission of assistance, for not having helped the victim, but not for raping her, while the other two lawyers They have also abounded in the lack of incriminating evidence and in that “she ignored it” and her attitude was that of “do what you want with me.”
One of the lawyers has emphasized that the relations took place in a park, not in a “lounge” as in the well-known case of “the herd”, which did not “try to escape” or ask for help. EFE