The national policeman investigated for grabbing a Femen activist by the breasts during a protest on 20-N in Madrid has assured before the judge that he did not touch the complainant’s breasts, but used a “police technique” to reduce her by the back while holding her by the shoulders.
The magistrate of the Investigating Court number 11 of Madrid took a statement this Thursday from the agent of the Police Intervention Unit (UIP), the riot police, whom he is investigating as a possible perpetrator of a crime of sexual abuse.
According to the representatives of the parties, the policeman has denied that he actually grabbed one of the three activists who were participating in the protest by the breasts, despite an image taken by a photojournalist in which the officer’s hands are on the complainant’s breasts.
The defense of the police, in charge of the lawyer representing the Jupol union Pedro Chamorro, has explained that this photograph is “fragmented” – several captures of the same image have been taken – and “does not correspond to reality”, since it is part of of a sequence of several seconds that the photojournalist captured with more photographs.
For his part, the plaintiff’s lawyer, Endika Zulueta, has clarified that the image he attached to his complaint “is part of a burst of photos” that the photographer himself, after his statement yesterday, provided to the judge and to the parts on a memory card.
In addition, he has remarked that it is “out of place to use the police function to sexually assault an activist who is carrying out a political action”, a situation with which he has never dealt since he represents the members of Femen.
“It is not a complaint against the Police, far from it. The officials have always acted scrupulously with the Femen activists,” he remarked.
The general secretary of Jupol, Aarón Rivero, has assured that the reduction technique that the investigated agent allegedly carried out “is taught in all police self-defense courses.”
The events date back to November 20, when the complainant and two other activists wanted to display various messages on their naked torsos against a rally held by the Spanish Catholic Movement in Madrid’s Plaza de Oriente.
Now the investigating judge will decide whether to continue with the procedure or if, on the contrary, to close the case.
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