The fraud in which a national police officer subjected five activists from social movements in Barcelona with whom he had sexual relations, ignoring his status as an agent, may be “morally condemned,” but it should be left to criminal proceedings. This was concluded by the judge who on Tuesday filed a complaint against the plaintiffs.
Embedded police: an activity without judicial control in the post-ETA scenario
In accordance with the procedure of the Prosecutor’s Office, the judge ruled that the behavior of the secret police officer could fit the crimes of sexual abuse, against moral integrity or torture, as the activists maintained. “There is no doubt that there is consent to have sex,” said the magistrate.
Judicial resolution draws a line between what the agent can be accused of ethically and morally and what a judge can investigate. The magistrate emphasized that the fraud in which the agent subjected the women to sleep with them could only be investigated if the victims were between 16 and 18 years old, something that did not happen in this case because they were all in legal age.
In any case while the relationship lasted the women had “suspicion of violence or threat” of the agent, which is the requirement to be able to investigate a crime against sexual freedom. They only realized the deception months later, when the portal The Direct He published that he was an agent who infiltrated the social movements of Barcelona.
The judge explained that consent “can be revoked at any time,” but it cannot “disappear” after the fact, once the sexual relationship has ended, because the women discover that the man they slept tricked them by not revealing his status as a police officer. The women, represented by the CGT and the Iridia center, will appeal the decision.
If the approach of the complainants is accepted, the instructor criticized the women, “we will go to excessive consideration of acts of sexual assault that were not non-consensual at the time they occurred.”
Since the women did not know that the man they were sleeping with was a police officer, the judge explained, it does not appear that the agent abused his status, which cannot be used to “pressure” the activists to have sex.
The sexual relations “occurred in the context of equality” and not “in a shameful manner, regardless of how the complainants feel now,” added the judge. “The Law cannot check whether the relationships are sincere or not, which may be objectionable from a moral point of view but not from a criminal point of view,” the magistrate concluded.
