Prosecutors are seeking a total of 375 years in prison for the accused, aged between 21 and 31 years old, on charges of "inflicting injuries of a terrorist-nature" and issuing "terrorist threats," alleging an atmosphere of constant "harassment and pressure" against police forces in the area.

But the defence argues this was a mere bar brawl in October 2016 in Alsasua, a town in Navarra, the northern region in Spain that neighbours the Basque Country and which Basque separatists -- including armed group ETA -- have long laid claim to.

The trial comes as critics raise the alarm over what they say is the disproportionate use of counter-terrorism laws in Spain, just days after a woman was arrested for "terrorism" in a probe on pro-independence activists in Catalonia who staged protests, including road blockades.

READ ALSO: Court probes Catalan independence activists for 'terrorism'

A judge subsequently released her and dropped the charge, opting for the lesser offence of "public disorder."

The two policemen allegedly beaten up in 2016 were off duty and had gone to the bar with their girlfriends, when they were reportedly set upon by locals in a fight that saw one of the officers go to hospital with a broken ankle.

In its ruling sending the case to trial, a judge from Spain's National Court, which deals with terror cases, said that at least two of the accused were part of a movement seeking to drive police out of town.

These types of movements were actively promoted by ETA when it targeted Spanish security forces, which it wanted out of what it considered its "country."

Ruben Mugica, lawyer for the Covite association of ETA victims that brought the case to court, said the severe charges were justified by "the context in which the attack happened."

He told Spanish radio that the atmosphere "of permanent harassment" during the decades of ETA's violent separatist campaign was still alive in some places today.

READ MORE: Spain's counter-terror law crushes satire: Amnesty International

The defendants, though, deny any form of concerted action, and some say they did not even assault the policemen.

Amnesty International, meanwhile, said that "while injuring people of course warrants criminal investigation, charges of terrorism are entirely inappropriate and must be dropped."

"This case is emblematic of the dangers that lurk within overly-broad and vaguely worded legislation, which can be used to criminalise behaviour that is far removed from any threat of terrorism." </s> The trial has got under way of eight people charged with terrorism-related offences for their alleged role in an altercation which led to two Spanish civil guards being hospitalised.

While some see the case as a bar brawl which has been blown out of proportion, others claim it is a sinister throwback to the days of Basque separatist violence.

The incident took place in October 2016, during local festivities in the town of Alsasua, in the Basque-speaking area of the northern Navarre region. But that is about all the two sides in the trial can agree upon.

The two civil guards involved allege that on entering a bar with their girlfriends they were recognised by local youths, who insulted them and told them to leave. According to the prosecution, the youths then attacked the two men, one of who suffered a broken ankle and the other various injuries. One of the women with them was also injured.

The prosecution says the episode was part of an orchestrated campaign of intimidation against Spanish security forces and have linked it to the kind of scare tactics traditionally used by supporters of terrorist group Eta. Nationalists regard Navarre as part of the Basque homeland, and the region witnessed much of Eta’s separatist violence during its four decades of terrorism, which ended with a permanent ceasefire in 2011.

Seven of the defendants could face prison sentences of 50 years or more for terrorist assault and threats, and the eighth could face a 12½-year sentence for terrorist threats.

But the defendants, aged between 21 and 31, insist they have had no involvement in any strategy to intimidate security forces.

“It’s been made clear that our children are not terrorists,” Isabel Pozueta, the mother of one of the defendants, said on Monday after the first session of the trial, which is taking place in the high court in Madrid.

“They were just some normal kids, like those of any mum or dad, who went out for a good time and what happened was a bar brawl.”

Ms Pozueta’s son, Adur Ramírez, is one of three defendants who have been in custody for 18 months leading up to the trial.

On Monday, all eight defendants denied being directly involved in the altercation at all.

The families have warned that the trial has been influenced by terrorism victims’ groups who, they say, want punitive sentences as a form of revenge on Basque nationalists. Amnesty International has also expressed concerns about the lengthy prison terms the defendants could face.

On Tuesday, the two civil guards testified, alleging that a total of 20 or 25 people attacked them in an assault which began inside the bar and continued on the street.

One of the guards, who had only recently been posted to Alsasua when the incident took place, described it as a town still in thrall to pro-independence extremism.

“I’m used to violent situations and stress because of the job and I’d never been through anything like this,” he said of the alleged assault. “We were outnumbered, [we had] that feeling of being hated because we were civil guards and I’d never felt that before.” </s> MADRID (AP) — The trial of seven men and one woman accused of beating up two police officers and their girlfriends two years ago in northern Spain opened Monday amid controversy because of the terrorism charges brought against the defendants.

The fight at a bar in the small town of Alsasua in the early hours of Oct. 15, 2016, left one off-duty officer with a broken ankle and caused psychological trauma to all the victims, according to Civil Guard unions.

Prosecutors say the brawl should be punished under the country's terrorism laws, as crimes of terrorist intent. They claim the attackers were members of Basque activism groups and that targeted the off-duty officers as part of their campaign to oust Spanish security forces from Basque areas. The goal is also shared by the militant separatist group ETA.

Areas with a strong Basque identity are grappling to overcome decades of violence at the hands of ETA, which killed more than 800 people including police, politicians and entrepreneurs before giving up its armed campaign for Basque independence in 2011.

Supporters say the charges are disproportionate for what they consider that was a simple bar brawl. They also complain that three of the defendants have been kept in pre-trial custody for nearly 18 months. They also consider the prosecutors' request for prison sentences ranging between 12 and 62 years as unreasonable.

"It would be a real judicial aberration to uphold the charges," defense lawyer Manuel Olle said Monday. "That would be trivializing terrorism in the criminal code."

Hearings have been scheduled for the next two weeks in the highly anticipated trial that opened Monday at the National Court in Madrid. A verdict could be months away.

Backed by regional and local authorities, tens of thousands of people protested over the weekend in the northern city of Pamplona, the capital of the province where Alsasua is located. The protesters marched behind a banner with the slogan "Justice. It's not terrorism."

Relatives of the defendants at the march said they were not backing impunity but urged that justice be applied "without exaggeration, distortion and disproportion."

The Collective for the Victims of Terrorism, or COVITE, which is part of the prosecution in the trial, said Saturday's march and local officials' support for it was a further attack on the victims and "a clear abandonment" of them.

COVITE's lawyer, Miguel Mugica, told Cadena SER the attack on the officers should be seen as part of a "totalitarian climate that remains in the streets of the Basque Country and Navarra and that seeks to silence dissidents."

Amnesty International has said the violent aggression should be tried in a lower regional court in Navarra, and not at the National Court, which typically handles terrorism cases.

Inactive since 2011, ETA gave up on its remaining arsenal last year. Both France and Spain, where the group committed most of its deadly actions over more than 40 years, have demanded it take a further step and disband. </s> MADRID — A trial has opened over the beating of two police officers and their girlfriends in northern Spain two years ago, a case surrounded by controversy because of the terrorism charges brought against the eight defendants.

Prosecutors say the fight at a bar in Alsasua in October 2016 should be treated as terror injuries and threats and judged as part of the long-standing Basque separatist campaign to oust Spanish security forces.

Supporters and defence lawyers say the charges are disproportionate for what they see as a bar brawl.

They also complain that three of the defendants have been kept in pretrial custody for nearly 18 months and reject the prosecutors’ request for prison sentences ranging between 12 and 62 years.

Tens of thousands of people protested over the weekend in the northern city of Pamplona behind a banner with the slogan “Justice. It’s not terrorism.” </s> A Spanish court condemned on Thursday five men accused of the group rape of an 18-year-old woman at the 2016 San Fermin bull running festival in 2016 to nine years in prison each for the lesser crime of sexual abuse.

MADRID: A Spanish court on Thursday cleared five men of the gang rape of an 18-year-old woman at the 2016 San Fermin bull-running festival in Pamplona, convicting them of the lesser crime of sexual abuse.

The decision drew immediate criticism and outrage. Protesters gathered outside the court building chanted: "It's not abuse, it's rape", and shook their fists at the building.

The so-called "Wolf Pack" case had already sparked widespread anger around Spain following concern over increased reports of sex attacks at the annual festival and over the mistreatment of women in general.

It has also drawn international attention, coming at a time of heightened global concern over the sexual abuse of women in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

After a five-month trial held behind closed doors to protect the victim's identity, a judge read out the sentences in the court in the northern region of Navarra.

The state prosecutor had asked for prison sentences of more than 20 years for each of the men. Instead they were given nine-year sentences.

Under Spanish law, the lesser charge of sexual abuse differs from rape in that it does not involve violence or intimidation.

The charge is used in cases of sexual activity between underage partners and those seen not capable of giving permission for sexual contact, such as those who are severely handicapped or under the influence of drugs or drink.

Feminist groups scheduled protests for Thursday evening in Spanish cities around the country, including outside the Justice Ministry in Madrid, in reaction to the sentence.

"If five people surrounding a girl is not aggression, the question has to be what is wrong with our criminal code?" former Secretary of State for Equality Soledad Murillo said in comments published in El Pais newspaper.

National Police also showed their support for the victim, saying in a Tweet: "No is no - we are with you".

The regional government of Navarra, where the San Fermin festival takes place, will appeal the ruling, Spanish press quoted a regional government spokeswoman as saying. No one at the regional government could immediately be reached for comment.

The five men, including a former policeman and a former soldier, and the victim were not present in court. The men, dubbed by Spanish media "The Wolf Pack" after the name of their WhatsApp group, have been held in custody since July 2016.

The judge, who did not give the reasoning behind the sentence, also ordered the men to pay the victim 50,000 euros (£43,517.19) in compensation. The ruling can be appealed in Spain's Supreme Court.

The incident took place in the lobby of a building in the early hours of the morning at the San Fermin festival, which brings more than one million people to Pamplona for the nine-day-long festival in July.

The woman was found crying by two people who rang the police when she said she had been sexually assaulted. She made a statement to the police, describing the five men who were later arrested.

Fragments of video from the men's mobile phones taken at the scene were used as evidence in the trial, alongside witness accounts and biological tests. The defence team argued the incident was a case of consensual group sex.

The Running of the Bulls involves hundreds of people dressed in white shirts and red neckerchiefs running down narrow streets in front of fighting bulls before ending in the city's bull-ring, where bullfights take place in the afternoon.

The festival is just as famous for the drinking and revelry on the sidelines, with huge street parties, processions and firework displays. The event draws thousands of tourists from all over the world.

Thousands of people took to the streets two years ago to protest against sexual assault at the festival and the Pamplona council has mounted a campaign against sexual harassment in recent years, increasing policing and encouraging women to report attacks. </s> Spain could change its criminal law after five men accused of gang raping a teenager at the Pamplona bull run were jailed for sexual abuse.

Thousands of people staged a second day of protests across the country, including in Barcelona and Madrid, after the five men were sentenced on Thursday to nine years in jail for the lesser offence.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Pamplona court which handed down the verdict, shouting "it's not sexual abuse, it's rape".

They also held banners reading "palace of injustice".

The Spanish government announced on Friday that it would consider reforming the law in response.

Activists described the attack on an 18-year-old woman during the 2016 running of the bulls festival as a gang rape.

The men, aged 27 to 29, were accused of attacking the woman at the entrance to an apartment building at the start of the week-long San Fermin festival, which draws tens of thousands of visitors.

Leaving her half naked, the group, which included a Guardia Civil policeman and a former solidier, then stole her mobile phone.

The five, all from Seville, also filmed the incident with their phones and then bragged about it on a WhatsApp group where they referred to themselves as "La Manada" - the pack.

Judges acquitted them of sexual assault, which includes rape, after ruling there was no "violence or intimidation" in the case.

The judges also ruled the victim had not consented, but neither had she expressed any opposition.

Several left-wing politicians questioned the verdict, and the regional government of Navarre province said it would launch an appeal because it "shares the discontent of the citizens".

The prosecutors office said it will also challenge the judgement, after prosecutors argued during the trial last autumn there was "serious intimidation and it prevented resistance or flight".

Lawyers had called for each of the men, several who are "ultras" who support FC Sevilla, to be jailed for 22 years and 10 months.

The group has been kept in pre-trial custody since they were arrested and were also ordered to pay the victim €50,000 (£43,923) in compensation.

Their lawyers argued the victim agreed to the sexual encounter and only admitted the gang had stolen her mobile phone.

Lawyers for four of the men said they would appeal, as did the woman's lawyer.

Further demonstrations are planned in Pamplona for Saturday, the Pamplona Woman's Movement said. </s> Protests have erupted across Spain after five men were jailed for nine years each for sexual abuse in what activists saw as a gang rape during the 2016 running of the bulls festival in Pamplona.

Protests have erupted across Spain after five men were jailed for nine years each for sexual abuse in what activists saw as a gang rape during the 2016 running of the bulls festival in Pamplona.

Protests held across Spain after five men cleared for Pamplona gang rape

Police stopped the crowd from advancing toward the entrance to the court, with some angry demonstrators shoving officers. Thousands of protesters gathered hours later in central Pamplona and most of Spain's major cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, Bilbao, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Demonstrators shouted slogans like "No is no!" while some waved homemade signs and wore red gloves as a symbol of protest. The five members of La Manada - or The Pack, after the nickname the group gave themselves - were found guilty of sexual abuse, which does not involve violence or intimidation under Spain's criminal code.

The prosecution had argued that violence was used and the 18-year-old victim did not consent to intercourse. The court on Thursday chose the lesser sexual abuse charge in contrast to the more severe charge prosecutors sought along with harsher sentences of more than 22 years in prison.

The court agreed there was no consent because the defendants were in a position of "superiority that curtailed the victim's freedom". One of the three judges in the panel voted in favour of acquitting the defendants, the court said.

According to testimony at the trial, the men offered to accompany the victim to her car but instead hauled her into a building where they filmed their assault with their smartphones. They then took her mobile phone and left. The men argued that the young woman had consented to intercourse.

To support the claim, their lawyers produced detectives' reports on the victim's behaviour after the incident, causing outrage among women's rights groups who said the victim was being judged for her behaviour rather than the attackers. The defence then withdrew the report. In addition to the prison time, the court ruled they should jointly compensate the victim with €50,000 and refrain from contacting her for 15 years.

The five have been in pre-trial custody since they were arrested after the incident. The president of Spain's Feminist Party, Lidia Falcon, told La Sexta television that the ruling means rape in Spain is "practically free" of punishment. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the government "had to respect" the controversial ruling, while adding that authorities must respond to the public uproar.

"I think we have to analyse what we as public authorities must do so that incidents like this don't happen again in our country," she said. Justice Minister Raphael Catala said that the laws in question date from 1995 and should be reviewed to see if "it is convenient to push for their revision". </s> A Spanish court condemned on Thursday five men accused of the group rape of an 18-year-old woman at the 2016 San Fermin bull running festival in 2016 to nine years in prison each for the lesser crime of sexual abuse.

MADRID: A Spanish court on Thursday cleared five men of the gang rape of an 18-year-old woman at the 2016 San Fermin bull-running festival in Pamplona, convicting them of the lesser crime of sexual abuse.

The case had sparked widespread anger around Spain following

concern over increased reports of sex attacks at the annual festival and over the mistreatment of women in general.

The case has also drawn international attention, coming at a time of heightened global concern over the sexual abuse of women in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

Following the ruling, protesters gathered outside the court chanting: "It's not abuse, it's rape" and shook their fists at the building.

The state prosecutor had asked for prison sentences of more than 20 years for each of the men. Instead they were given nine-year sentences.

After a five-month trial held behind closed doors to protect the victim's identity, a judge read out the sentences in a televised address from the court in the northern region of Navarra.

Under Spanish law, the lesser charge of sexual abuse differs from rape in that it does not involve violence or intimidation.

The five men, including a former policeman and a former soldier, and the victim, who is from Madrid, were not present in court. They have been held in custody since July 2016.

The judge, who did not give the reasoning behind the sentence, also ordered the men to pay the victim 50,000 euros (£43,579) in compensation. The ruling can be appealed in Spain's Supreme Court.

The incident took place at the San Fermin festival, which brings more than million people to Pamplona for the nine-day-long festival in July.

The Running of the Bulls involves hundreds of people dressed in white shirts and red neckerchiefs running down narrow streets in front of fighting bulls before ending in the city's bull-ring, where bullfights take place in the afternoon.

However, the festival is just as famous for the drinking and revelry that takes place on the sidelines with huge street parties, processions and firework displays. The event draws thousands of tourists from all over the world.

Thousands of people took to the streets two years ago to protest against sexual assault at the festival and the Pamplona council has mounted a campaign against sexual harassment in recent years, increasing policing and encouraging women to report attacks.

Feminist groups scheduled protests for Thursday evening in Spanish cities around the country, including outside the Justice Ministry in Madrid, in reaction to the sentence. </s> Protests are being held across Spain after five men accused of the gang rape of a teenager during the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona were found guilty of the lesser offence of sexual abuse.

The attack two years ago prompted a national outcry, as did the subsequent trial, which was widely criticised as a cross-examination of the 18-year-old woman rather than the men who attacked her.

The verdicts were delivered at a court in Pamplona, the capital of the Navarre region of northern Spain. José Ángel Prenda, Alfonso Cabezuelo, Antonio Manuel Guerrero, Jesús Escudero and Ángel Boza were sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment, five years’ probation and ordered to pay €10,000 each to the woman. Guerrero, a Guardia Civil police officer, was also fined €900 for stealing her phone after the attack.

Protesters in Pamplona shouted “This justice is bullshit!”, “It’s not abuse, it’s rape!” and “If they touch one of us, they touch all of us!” after the verdict was read out. On Thursday evening thousands more demonstrators gathered outside the justice ministry in Madrid, the Plaça Sant Jaume in Barcelona and in cities across the country.

The men were found guilty of the “continuous sexual abuse” of the woman in the lobby of a building in the early hours of 7 July 2016, but not of rape.



Under Spanish law, the lesser offence of sexual abuse differs from rape in that it does not involve violence or intimidation. One of the judges argued that the men should have been cleared of all charges except the phone theft.

The men, who called themselves la manada or “the wolf pack” in their WhatsApp group, had offered to walk the woman to her car but instead took her into the hall of a building, attacked her and filmed the assault on their phones.

The victim was later found crying on a bench. She described her attackers to police, who arrested the five men the following day.



Their defence lawyers claimed the woman had consented and had let one of the men kiss her. They also argued that 96 seconds of video footage from the men’s phones – showing the woman immobile and with her eyes shut during the attack – was proof of consent.

The prosecution, however, said the victim had been too terrified to move.

“The defendants want us to believe that on that night they met an 18-year-old girl, living a normal life, who, after 20 minutes of conversation with people she didn’t know, agreed to group sex involving every type of penetration, sometimes simultaneously, without using a condom,” the prosecutor Elena Sarasate said.

If the sex was consensual why had they taken her phone, Sarasate asked. “The obvious thing would be to exchange phone numbers, not steal her phone.”



The proceedings were also criticised after the judges accepted into evidence a report compiled by a private detective hired by some of the defendants. The detective had followed the woman over several days and produced photographs of her smiling with friends.



'It's really ugly': anger and anxiety over sexual violence at the Pamplona bull run Read more

This was presented as evidence that she had not suffered any lasting trauma, prompting hundreds of women to demonstrate outside court holding signs reading: “We believe you, sister.”

Thursday’s verdict came after five months of deliberation by judges. Prosecutors had sought jail terms of 22 years each.



The woman’s lawyer said she was disappointed with the sentence and would appeal against it. A spokeswoman for the Navarre regional government said it did not agree with the verdict and would also appeal.

A lawyer for four of the men said they planned to appeal against their sentences, saying the court “can’t just come up with the offence of sexual abuse when it never formed the basis of the accusation and wasn’t something the defence could prepare for”.

The verdicts were quickly and fiercely criticised by many senior politicians and human rights groups.

Susana Díaz, the president of the regional government of Andalusia, tweeted: “I always respect judicial sentences but this is one I neither understand nor agree with. We must have zero tolerance for sexual violence throughout society.”

Her colleague, Pedro Sánchez, the leader of Spain’s socialist party, wrote: “She said NO. We believe you and we’ll keep believing you. If what the ‘wolfpack’ did wasn’t group violence against a defenceless woman, then what do we understand by rape?”

As demonstrations were announced across Spain, Amnesty International said: “The lack of legal recognition that sexual relations without consent constitute rape gives rise to the idea that it’s down to us as women to protect ourselves from rape.

Meanwhile the international human rights group Women’s Link said the case had offered judges a “unique opportunity” to set a precedent that would help protect victims of sexual assaults. But “the court didn’t take it. Once again. Once again, what a disappointment.”

Spain’s deputy prime minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, said while the judge’s sentences ought to be respected, the authorities now needed to analyse what had happened “to avoid such behaviour happening again in this country”.

In a tweet posted shortly after the verdicts were read out, Spain’s national police force wrote “No means no” 12 times, along with their emergency phone number and the message: “We’re with you.”
Eight people go on trial in Navarra, Spain, accused of terrorism after an alleged attack on two Civil Guards in a controversial case with the prosecution seeking a total 375 years imprisonment for the defendants. The defence claims the incident was nothing more than a bar brawl and Amnesty International describes the charges as "inappropriate".