The last four defendants in the Sansoeta case must also go to prison for child abuse
Álava Palace of Justice, in a stock image. Photo: EITB Media
The Supreme Court has rejected the appeals of the last four convicts in the Sansoeta case and sent them to prison. Along with the other five accused, they have been convicted of sexual abuse of minors; several of these victims were under the guardianship of the Provincial Council of Álava.
As stated in the judgement, several arguments were put forward in the appeals, including that they did not know the age of the young people — six boys and one girl were the victims — and that the excessive extension of the trial should be applied as a mitigating factor, arguments which the Supreme Court has not accepted and which will have to serve sentences of seven to sixteen years' imprisonment for sexual abuse of young people who passed through the Sansos juvenile centre and were advertised on a contact website.
Sentence
According to the verdict, the four convicts — along with five others who had previously exhausted all their resources — met young people several times in 2016. In most cases they were known through a contact website, but in some cases, as recorded in the judgment, their first contact was in a discotheque or through social networks.
At the time of the incident, adults between the ages of 30 and 60 — now between the ages of 40 and 70 — had sex with minors in exchange for money and drugs.
The case was reported by a relative of one of the minors and an educator in Sansoeta, who suspected that, despite the low financial support provided by the Council, the young people had a significantly higher standard of living.
Process
Initially, eleven adults were prosecuted by the justice system, one of whom died in the trial, another was acquitted and the other nine followed two paths: one accepted the sentence imposed and the other took the case to the extreme, first by appealto the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country and then to the Supreme Court.
In total, the nine defendants have been sentenced to almost 80 years' imprisonment for corruption of minors and crimes such as continued sexual abuse.
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