The Canary Islands Prosecutor’s Office is willing to withdraw the prison sentence it requests against the Real Madrid defender, Raúl Asencio, for having shown another person a sex video recorded without permission, on the condition that he apologizes in court to the two women who appear in the images.
The prosecutor Mercedes Gil Castillo, who until now requested two and a half years in prison for Raúl Asencio, has spoken in these terms during a preliminary hearing prior to the trial that was held this Tuesday in Plaza number 5 of the Criminal Section of the Court of Instance of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
In this context, the Public Ministry will ask that Asencio sit on the bench along with his three former teammates from the Real Madrid youth team accused of having filmed and disseminated that sexual video with two women – one of them a minor – in Gran Canaria in the summer of 2023, because he continues to defend that he committed a crime by showing it to another person knowing that it was recorded without permission.
Crimes against privacy
However, he accepts the approach that the defense has presented in the preliminary hearing: criminal responsibility can be extinguished by the forgiveness of the offended parties, since Asencio is accused of crimes against privacy, of a semi-public nature, in which Spanish legislation recognizes that possibility.
In this case, Ferrán Ruiz, Juan Rodríguez and Andrés García are also prosecuted, the three footballers who are credited with having recorded the video during a consensual sexual relationship they had with two young men at a club on Amadores beach and having spread it on WhatsApp to various contacts and collective chats despite the girls asking them to delete it.
The sentencing request for them is more severe: four years and seven months in prison, because the Prosecutor’s Office considers that they filmed and disseminated those sexual images without consent and knowing that a minor appeared, which leads them to formulate the charge of distribution of child pornography, a crime in which a hypothetical forgiveness of the victims would have no legal effect.
Legal formalities
On the other hand, Asencio is only charged with two crimes against privacy. Furthermore, the defense has in his favor that the two victims have already withdrawn the accusation against him, after having been compensated.
Last September, the Real Madrid footballer sent them both a letter expressly acknowledging that he made “the mistake” of showing a friend the video recorded by Ruiz, Rodríguez and García.
In the preliminary hearing held this Tuesday, the prosecutor in the case acknowledged that letter and the statements of acceptance of the apologies made by the two victims.
However, he has stressed that he wants the legal formalities to be complied with, for Asencio to sit in the dock (it has been months since the opening of the oral trial was decreed) and for it to be in the oral hearing in which he apologizes to the offended parties and they speak out.
