The Supreme annuls Echenique’s sentence to pay 80,000 euros for accusing a man of rape

Both the current spokesperson for United We Can in Congress and the former deputy and former communication secretary of the party were brought to justice in 2019 after it emerged that Pilar Baeza, Podemos candidate for mayor of Ávila, had served a prison sentence for participate in the murder of Manuel López. The Justice declared proven that she had planned her death with her partner and a friend of hers, accusing the victim of a rape that was never proven.

In the midst of controversy over the designation of Baeza as a candidate, the two leaders of the party then led by Pablo Iglesias publicly defended Baeza in two messages written on their Twitter accounts. “We are talking about events that took place 35 years ago, which refer to a woman who was raped,” Echenique said. For her part, Juanma del Olmo, then a deputy, wrote a tweet in which she could read, among other things: “35 years ago she was the victim of rape. Her boyfriend then shot the man who raped her. She was convicted of complicity and paid her debt to society”.

The Provincial Court of Madrid understood that both should compensate Manuel López’s relatives with 80,000 euros for violating the honor of the murdered man. The judges understood that he was not a public figure and that, in addition, the two politicians attributed a violation to him that had never been proven in court. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor’s Office asked the civil court to revoke the conviction, as it had maintained since the beginning of the process: “The facts had already been publicized, prominently displaying the version maintained by the victim within the beginning of the electoral campaign by some media outlets and, in this context, it is where the defendants’ demonstrations take place,” said the Public Ministry.

Now it is the civil chamber of the Supreme Court that annuls Echenique’s sentence and lowers that of Juanma del Olmo to 10,000 euros. The judges understand that the statements of both are not comparable and exonerate only the parliamentary spokesman for Ione Belarra’s party: “Mr. Echenique’s statements must be protected by his right to freedom of expression,” they say about the politician. His was a response to a journalist at a press conference and “a certain vagueness may be excused” in his case.

In addition, the judges say, Echenique “did not make a direct accusation against the deceased” brother of the plaintiff, but rather expressed “a show of solidarity with his political training partner.” Juanma del Olmo’s tweet, however, does not have the same protection for the Supreme Court: “He did not limit himself to showing his solidarity with his political training partner, but directly accused the murdered man of having raped Mrs. Baeza” , they reproach

Imputing a murder to him in this way, says the Supreme Court, was not protected by freedom of expression as it had been in the case of Echenique. “The political theses that this defendant may defend do not legitimize his conduct. The fight against gender-based violence, which is fully legitimate, cannot be confused with the public and direct accusation of the victim of a murder of being guilty of a violation regarding the reality of which there is no proof”, concludes the Supreme Court.

What the judges do do is reduce the compensation that Juanma del Olmo must pay from 80,000 to 10,000 euros. His tweet, they explain, had much less diffusion and importance than Echenique’s statements and, in addition, the right to honor that has been violated is that of the deceased and not directly that of his brother, who brought them to justice.