This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Five French men accused of gang-raping a Norwegian woman in a holiday apartment in the Spanish resort of Benidorm have been charged with sexual abuse.

The men, all aged 18 or 19, were arrested on Wednesday, Spanish police said, after a medical centre visited by the 20-year-old woman had alerted authorities in the early hours of the morning.

Three of the accused were remanded in custody on Thursday, and two were released without bail.

These five “are indicted in an open investigation for crimes of sexual abuse”, judicial authorities said in a statement late on Thursday. They added that the charges could be reviewed based on the results of the investigation.

Police said the men had initially been arrested for alleged sexual assault, which includes rape under Spanish law, and for the less serious charge of sexual abuse against the woman’s friend.

The woman told investigators she and a friend, who is also Norwegian, had joined the men at the apartment after meeting them on social media. She said her friend later left and she remained alone with the five men, whom she accused of raping her.

Both women were able to help identify the men, who are all from the southern French city of Toulouse, using their social network profiles.

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A lawyer for one of the accused said his client admitted having sex with the woman, but said it was consensual and was not in a group. “The events took place in a very alcoholic context on both sides,” the lawyer said.

Spain’s criminal code states that intimidation or violence must be proven for a person to be convicted of sexual assault, but the government wants to reform it to stipulate that a woman must give her explicit consent for sex.

In a notorious case, five Spaniards were initially sentenced last year to nine years in prison for sexual abuse for the gang-rape of a young woman in Pamplona in July 2016 during the city’s bull-running festival.

The supreme court increased their sentences to 15 years each in June by requalifying the charges as rape.