They hunt drunk at the wheel after an accident to the judge who sentenced La Manada
The president of the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Navarra, José Francisco Cobo Sáenz, was involved in a traffic accident on Saturday in which his car collided with another vehicle. According to reports to El Confidencial police sources, when the Civil Guard went to the scene, they subjected the magistrate to a breathalyzer test and he tested positive.. This 64-year-old judge presided over the court that tried and convicted the members of the San Fermín Pack in 2018 for a crime of sexual abuse, a ruling that generated widespread social rejection by not classifying the acts as rape..
According to the sources consulted, the events took place on August 5 at 8:45 p.m. at kilometer 59 of the LR-113 road, in the municipality of Baños de Río Tobía (La Rioja).. This newspaper has tried to obtain the magistrate's version of events, but has avoided making statements. He has limited himself to communicating that he assumes responsibility for what happened. The police sources consulted affirm that José Francisco Cobo addressed the agents in a polite manner at all times.
Before the members of the Civil Guard who went to the place, the judge introduced himself as president of the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Navarra, said that he had been practicing the profession for 40 years and also remarked that he had had the opportunity to intervene in connection with many accidents. Now it has been he himself who has been involved in a sinister road driving, in this case, under the influence of alcohol.
Legal sources specify that the Logroño court —to which that area corresponds— which was on duty on Saturday has not initiated criminal proceedings for a crime against road safety. Due to the rate of alcohol that it presented, the facts were settled through administrative channels, for which presumably it will be sanctioned with a fine.. In the accident, there was material damage, but neither the judge nor the driver of the other car had to suffer serious injuries, according to the first information.
José Francisco Cobo Sáenz is a veteran of the judicial career. One of the most publicized causes that he has had to face was the sexual assault perpetrated by five Sevillians on a young woman from Madrid during the Sanfermines festivities in 2016.. After the trial sessions, the section he presides over issued a sentence in March 2018. The resolution, in which Cobo Sáenz was a speaker, imposed nine years in prison for sexual abuse on each of the five defendants.
That was the controversial ruling that also had a dissenting opinion from another of the court magistrates, Ricardo Javier González González, who defended the acquittal of La Manada and came to use the word jolgorio to describe what happened in a portal in Pamplona in the one in which the five men surrounded their victim. After exhausting the appeal, the Supreme Court ended up establishing the facts as a violation and imposed 15 years in prison on each of the defendants..
The last decision adopted by the Second Section of the Provincial Court on this matter was to reject a sentence reduction for violators under the new sentence ranges established by the law of only yes is yes. This claim by the Sevillian lawyer has been, for months, in the hands of the Superior Court of Justice of Navarra.