Eight men charged over alleged 'filmed gang rape' of teenage tourist at Magaluf hotel
More details of the alleged horror attack on the 18-year-old in August last year emerged overnight as the charges were confirmed. During the 'half-hour' of depravity the British youngster was submitted to, she is said to have been filmed by the men o
Eight men have been charged over the alleged gang rape of a British teenage tourist at a Magaluf hotel. The suspects, seven Frenchmen and a Swiss national, are all being held on remand in prison in Majorca or on the Spanish mainland and are expected to remain behind bars until their trial .
More details of the alleged horror attack on the 18-year-old in August last year emerged overnight as the charges were confirmed.
Respected Majorcan newspaper Diario de Mallorca, outlining details of the female investigating judge’s lengthy investigation into the sickening crime, said she had concluded at least five of the men took turns to rape their alleged victim while the other three sexually assaulted her.
It reported that she found the tourist was also spat on, hit, insulted and bottom-whipped after her alleged rapists took advantage of her alcohol-induced “state of semi-consciousness” and stripped her naked in a room at the BH Mallorca Resort in Magaluf in the early hours of August 14 last year.
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During the “half-hour” of depravity the British youngster was submitted to, she is said to have been filmed by the men on their mobile phones as they egged each other and the videos posted to a “well-known social media network”. The investigating judge found evidence pointing to one of the suspects filming 14 videos lasting 170 seconds, and another filming five videos lasting 142 seconds, according to Diario de Mallorca.
Five of the men have been charged with rape and three with sexual assault. Other charges laid include mistreatment and privacy crimes relating to the publication of the mobile phone videos.
No date for the men’s trial has yet been set and it was not immediately clear this morning if prosecutors or lawyers acting for the alleged victim have already said what prison sentences they are seeking for the men if they end up being convicted as charged.
Six of the suspects, five Frenchmen and a Swiss national aged 18 to 26, were taken into custody in Majorca shortly after the alleged gang-rape. Another two were subsequently held in France on a European Arrest Warrant issued by a Spanish judge and extradited.
Reports at the time said three of the suspects met the British teenager hours earlier while partying in Magaluf and one had allegedly gone out into a hotel corridor after “sexually attacking” her to encourage strangers returning from their own night out to have “free sex” with her.
After the incident involving the British teenager, the BH Mallorca Resort said it was cooperating fully with the authorities and offered its support to the unnamed holidaymaker. A spokesman said in a statement at the time: “The BH Mallorca Resort deeply regrets what has happened and would like to manifest its firm and forceful repudiation of the alleged sexual attack that occurred in the early hours of Monday August 14 at the hotel.
“The hotel also wants to demonstrate its solidarity with the alleged victim of this aggression. We are co-operating fully with the Civil Guard and its investigators in everything they consider to be necessary. This hotel ratifies through this statement its commitment to the condemnation of all types of sexual attacks that affect peoples’ dignity and physical integrity. Behaviour that undermines those rights has no place in this establishment.”
The Civil Guard in Majorca said in a statement after the last of the eight arrests: “The Civil Guard has closed the investigation sparked by the alleged gang rape that took place in a hotel in Magaluf in the early hours of August 14 2023.”
“Officers saw early on the complexity of the investigation, as the alleged aggressors didn’t form part of the same group of friends but encouraged by other participants, had allegedly joined the group action in sporadic acts, meaning no type of relationship existed between them.”
Confirming the first six suspects had been held the day of the alleged sex attack and remanded in prison, a force spokesman added: “The probe continued in order to identify the two young men whose arrests were pending. One they had been identified, officers discovered they had taken a flight to Baden-Baden in Germany so they could head to their homes in the Strasbourg area.
“The Civil Guard sought the assistance of the French authorities through the normal channels and issued European Arrest Warrants to avoid them evading justice.
“On Sunday August 20 2023 the French police confirmed they arrested one of them in the French locality of Scherwiller before subsequently confirming a second arrest at Basel Mulhouse Freiburg Airport in France, when that suspect was trying to take a flight to Turkey to avoid detention.”
It was also claimed the first of the Magaluf gang-rape suspects was held after Spanish police got him to answer the ‘stolen’ mobile phone of the British teenager targeted. The French youngster picked up the phone and then went with two holiday pals to the lobby of the hotel where the sex attack allegedly took place unaware they would be met by the teenager and detectives assisting her, respected Majorcan newspaper Ultima Hora reported in the days after the incident.
All three were arrested on the spot before the other three suspects were located over the following hours after the 18-year-old gave police their descriptions.
A security guard at the hotel where the incident occurred came to the rescue of the British teenager after finding her sobbing on the floor in the lobby. He had just come in for his morning shift and described the police response at the time as very quick and efficient.
Bruises were found on the tourist’s arm during a medical examination which were believed to have been caused by her alleged rapists holding her down. She also suffered a cut to her chest.
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