Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s one thing nobody can deny, it’s that the exciting bull-running San Fermin festival in Pamplona, Spain, has sadly been overshadowed by an act of sexual violence over the last few years. That’s because, as profiled in Netflix’s ‘You Are Not Alone: Fighting the Wolf Pack,’ it is now largely associated with the fact an 18-year-old was gang-raped following an evening of fun in 2016. So now, if you simply wish to learn more about her assailants — Alfonso Jesús Cabezuelo, Ángel Boza, Antonio Manuel Guerrero, Jesús Escudero, and José Ángel Prenda — here’s what we know.
Who Are the San Fermín Rapists?
Since Alfonso, Ángel, Antonio, Jesús, as well as José are all natives of Seville, Spain, they made their way down to Pamplona in the summer of 2016 together to really celebrate the Sanfermines. It turns out most of them had essentially grown up together, with Ángel being the odd one out as merely a mutual friend thanks to José, but they still treated one another like genuine family. The fact they came from different walks of life didn’t matter to them either; Alfonso was in the military, Antonio was about to begin active duty upon having graduated from the Civil Guard’s Police Academy, Jesús was a barber, and Jose had a few soccer-related arrests.
“They’re like a family,” the aforementioned original production reiterated at one point. “What happens in the group stays in the group. They behave as a pack” — in fact, one of their WhatsApp group chats was literally named The Wolf Pack and filled with locker room talk. While one of Alfonso’s texts in this space read, “The power of the wolf lies in the pack, man,” a friend of theirs had sent, “we have to get chloroform, ropes, roofies… if we all want to be able to rape.” Then, on the fateful July 7/8 night, merely 3½ following the incident, José had messaged, “The five of us f***ing one chick. What a fucking amazing trip” — there was even a video of the same.
Little did any of them know that their victim had already reported her case to the police, asserting there were four men from Seville who’d cornered and taken turns on her in a small hotel corridor. She vehemently claimed she’d submitted out of fear before trying to block everything by keeping her eyes closed for as long as possible, but she did vividly remember some of them having torso tattoos. All five of them were thus arrested within hours owing to a quick response by officials, only for them to then kind of corroborate her account by stating the six of them had engaged in consensual sex.
Alfonso, Ángel, Antonio, Jesús, and José actually went as far as to remark this 18-year-old Madrid native had been the one to call every shot before backtracking to stick solely to the consensual part. As for why she’d report them if everything were willing, they said they believed it was because of how quickly they left – – that if they’d bought her a beer, this whole ordeal could’ve been avoided. The group also added that since she didn’t say no or stop or verbally express her dissent to any of them at any point, they continued going forward with what they were doing until they’d all finished.
However, the video they’d taken kind of showed otherwise — even though it was merely 96 seconds long, it was enough to see this teen wasn’t into any of their verbal as well as physical actions. Moreover, and more importantly, the fact Antonio had stolen her cell phone prior to leaving her alone in the corridor also indicated some aspect of possible self-preservation, guilt, plus greed. This group still confidently justified their actions during trial though, resulting in a Navarre Court finding them guilty of a lesser charge of sexual abuse instead of sexual assault/rape on April 25, 2018.
The 2016 San Fermín Rapists Are Now Behind Bars
Alfonso, Ángel, Antonio, Jesús, and José were all subsequently sentenced to 9 years behind bars, just to then be allowed release on a €6,000 bail each until the prosecutor’s appeal could be heard. Yet in the end, on June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court of Spain upgraded the five previous convictions to that of continuous sexual assault/rape, leading all their sentences to be upped to 15 years too. Antonio was then given an additional two years for the phone stealing, while Ángel’s term was reduced by a year, only for four out of five to later land another 18 months for an unrelated sexual abuse.
During the initial Pamplona case investigations, it’d come to light these men had taken advantage of girls before too, especially as a couple of similar videos were uncovered from their phones. One such clip showed four of them in Pozoblanco, Andalusia, where they were subjecting an unconscious, unresponsive girl to groping and derision in their van, giving rise to another lawsuit. As noted above, this went against them too, so all five of them — Alfonso Jesús Cabezuelo, Ángel Boza, Antonio Manuel Guerrero, Jesús Escudero, and José Ángel Prenda — remain incarcerated in local Spain correctional facilities to this day.
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