Spanish prosecutors are to appeal against the verdict in the case of five men who were cleared of the gang rape of a woman during the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona and convicted of the lesser offence of sexual abuse.



News of the appeal came shortly before the Spanish government announced that it would re-examine the country’s sexual offences legislation to establish whether such crimes were adequately defined and categorised.

The verdict, which was announced on Thursday at the end of five months of deliberation by judges in the northern region of Navarre, prompted a furious public reaction and protests across Spain.



The trial had been seen as a cross-examination of the 18-year-old woman, rather than the men who attacked her. One of the three judges had argued that the defendants should have been acquitted of all charges except the theft of the victim’s phone.



On Friday morning, the Navarre regional government said its lawyers were working to appeal against the verdict, in which each defendant was jailed for nine years and ordered to pay the victim €10,000 (£8,800).

A spokeswoman said the regional government was looking into “possible contradictions” in the sentence, particularly the fact that while the judges had accepted key parts of the victim’s testimony, they had failed to find the evidence of violence and intimidation needed to secure a rape conviction.



The lawyers are expected to lodge their appeal with Navarre’s supreme court within the next 10 working days.

Ana Ollo, the region’s minister for citizen and institutional relations, said: “The government stands with the majority of its citizens, who yesterday expressed their unhappiness with, and rejection of, the sentence in dozens of places across Navarre.”



Olli said society “cannot understand how there is no violence or intimidation in a case like this”, adding that the continued focus on “women’s reactions instead of the behaviour of violent men” was at the heart of the problem.

“We just cannot understand how the collective assault of women can be seen by some sexist men as a leisure activity that goes unpunished and has become normalised,” she said.

Carlos Bacaicoa, a lawyer for the victim, said he was waiting to find out whether his client also wished to appeal against the verdict.

“We need to talk to her to see if she wants to appeal,” he told Efe news agency. “We feel that it needs to be appealed.”

The five men, who nicknamed themselves “the wolfpack” and included a soldier and a Guardia Civil police officer, were found guilty of the “continuous sexual abuse” of the woman in the lobby of a building in Pamplona in the early hours of 7 July 2016.



But they were not found guilty of rape. Under Spanish law, the lesser offence of sexual abuse differs from rape in that it does not involve violence or intimidation.

However, the judges recognised that the victim had been “stunned and unable to react” to what five older and stronger men were doing.

They also noted that she had adopted “an attitude of submission and subjugation” during the attack and “she did not freely give her consent; rather, it was coerced or forced given the situation”.

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



The following day, the government announced the review of existing legislation. Its spokesman, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, described the Pamplona attack as “despicable”. He said that while the government respected the independence of the courts, it “has always been, is, and will always be on the side of the victims”.