The convicted person must compensate the injured party with 15,000 euros
The head of Criminal Court number 2 of Cartagena sentenced the director of the portal ‘La Tribuna de Cartagena’ to three years in prison for disseminating data on the victim of ‘La Manada’. He must also compensate the injured party with 15,000 euros and pay a fine of 3,000 euros, as the author of a crime against moral integrity in competition with a crime of discovery and disclosure of secrets.
As proven by the sentence, in May 2018, the defendant, using a pseudonym, disseminated through his website a publication under the title “I do not believe you” that contained “restricted data that affected the privacy of the victim” of crimes against sexual freedom. Among them his name and surname, address, national identity document, center where he studied at the university and two photographs. One of them, details the resolution, “has a particularly degrading and vexatious character”, since the victim could be seen at a time when his sexual freedom was being violated.
All this, adds the sentence, when the Provincial Court of Navarra, in charge of prosecuting a procedure of great public repercussion, had issued an order prohibiting the disclosure or publication of information regarding the identity of the complainant or data that could facilitate their identification directly or indirectly, “as well as the prohibition of obtaining, publishing and disclosing images of the accuser or her relatives.”
Insults, threats and photographic montages
As a consequence of the access of a plurality of people to these data through the aforementioned website, concludes the section of proven facts, the complainant “received numerous anonymous messages through the Internet, insults, threats, photographic montages…”, which they affected his state of mind and his psychological situation. She came to cause “general anxiety at the possibility of her being recognized, with which she was forced to leave her place of residence, moving abroad and interrupting her university studies.” In addition, she must indemnify the injured party with 15,000 euros, of which the company Sureste Prensa Editorial SL will be subsidiarily responsible.
In the legal grounds, the magistrate explains that the defendant himself admits unambiguously to be the author “in the belief that he is publishing an opinion article in the exercise of the journalistic profession.” He also acknowledges having used expressions such as that “you were so drunk that instead of singing Asturias patria querida -as any normal young man should do when he gets drunk- you decided to make out with five shitty thugs” because “he was convinced that the sexual act is voluntary and not forced. And, after analyzing the constitutional doctrine on the limits of freedom of opinion, he concludes that this comes up against «the wall of respect for the honor and privacy of people and that translates into the prohibition of using insulting or vexatious terms or expressions : freedom of expression does not entail a right to insult, “he stresses.
«It is perfectly legal to disagree with any act of the Public Powers, in this case of a sentence, since this is part of the democratic standards of a Rule of Law, but of course the use of hurtful or lacerating terms before the person who turns out to be a victim of a crime against sexual freedom, and even less the publication of photographs with clear sexual content and the dissemination of identification data of the victim”, he clarifies. Next, he develops, in accordance with the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, how such excess configures the crime against moral integrity in competition with the disclosure of secret.
disabling
And on this point, it specifies that “the expressions that have been transcribed in the account of the proven facts are clearly vexatious, but above all, this character is evident in the publication of the name, surname, address, university study center of the victim, etc., Since, of course, they are completely irrelevant to the submitted opinion, and can only be reasonably explained from the intention of causing harm to the injured party”.
Finally, the ruling of the sentence includes the special disqualification of the accused for the performance of a profession or trade related to journalism and sectors related to it during the time of serving the sentence. The sentence is not final and against it it is possible to file an appeal before the Provincial Court of Murcia.
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