A court in Mallorca has ordered five young vacationers from Germany into custody because they are said to have raped a German woman. A court refused bail on Saturday, according to a court spokeswoman late in the evening. A sixth vacationer from Germany was released. A young tourist – also from Germany – is said to have been raped in a hotel room at Ballermann.
The Spanish newspaper “Última Hora” initially reported that the magistrate had postponed the decision in order to study documents on the case more closely.
Pre-trial detention in Spain can last weeks or months. If convicted of rape, penalties of up to 12 years can be imposed.
The six men were handcuffed to the court in Palma de Mallorca on Saturday morning. They pulled their shirts over their heads to avoid being recognized.
According to the police, the woman had met a man of about the same age from Germany in the German party stronghold at Ballermann on Thursday night. She agreed to go to his hotel room with him. However, she was turned away at reception because she was not a guest there.
The two then went to a nearby hotel, where five of the man’s friends from Germany had also stayed. When they later came into the room, four of the men forced the woman to perform sexual acts. One of the suspects filmed the crime with his cell phone.
The woman then fled to the bathroom, the police reported. One of the young Germans admitted to the woman that they had gone too far, calmed her down a bit and persuaded her to accompany her to the hotel where friends of hers were staying. From there, the woman alerted the police, who arrested five men in their hotel early Thursday morning and a sixth on Friday. The young German was taken to a hospital for an examination.
It was not disclosed where the suspects and the young woman came from in Germany.
In the Spanish media, the six men were sometimes referred to as “Manada alemana”, a “German pack”. This drew a parallel to a 2016 gang rape in Pamplona. At that time, five young men had raped a young woman in a doorway and filmed it. An initially very mild sentence against these men, known as “Manada”, triggered demonstrations across the country. The sex criminal law was changed as a result. However, the new “Only yes means yes” law unexpectedly led to the early release of many sex criminals and plunged the governing coalition into a crisis.
