Spanish court jails man for website mapping out 'Wolf Pack' gang rape

MADRID - A Spanish judge on Tuesday sentenced a 39-year-old man to a year and a half in prison for creating a website that mapped out a notorious 2016 gang rape at a bull-running festival.

The website, whose name translated as "Tour of the Wolf Pack", laid out the route taken in Pamplona by five men who attacked an 18-year-old woman early in the morning at the San Fermin festival in 2016.

The site was created in December 2018, months after a court cleared the five men of gang rape - a decision that led to mass protests and catapulted the issue of sexual assault into the national conversation.

Calling themselves the Wolf Pack, the men had recorded video of the attack on their mobile phones and later laughed about it on social media.

In June, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court decision, ruling that the five men were guilty of rape and sentenced them to 15 years in prison.

The court in Navarra ordered the website creator, a Madrid resident who was identified only by his initials, to also pay 15,000 euros ($16,500) to the victim in damages. The site turned the rape into "amusement, an irony, creating additional suffering" for the victim, the judge said in a statement.

"She saw her suffering exposed, minimized, trivialized ... in a clear disregard for her dignity," the judge added.

The court noted that the website creator can appeal against the sentence.