'EFE': Asensio prosecuted for allegedly sharing sex videos involving a minor

As reported by 'EFE', the Court of Instruction number 3 of San Bartolome de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) has formally indicted Real Madrid defender Raul Asencio and his former teammates in the club's youth teams Andres Garcia, Ferran Ruiz and Juan Rodriguez for allegedly recording sexual images of two women, one of them a minor, and disseminating them without their consent.

As reported on Wednesday afternoon by the Canary Islands High Court of Justice, the judge in charge of the case has issued the order that puts an end to the investigation and formalises the criminal proceedings against the four involved, which opens the way for the prosecution and the accusations to file charges and request the opening of trial.

The investigator of the case has found evidence of the following crimes: discovery of secrets without consent and violation of privacy (article 197.1 of the Spanish Penal Code), distribution and sending to third parties of the videos without warning or consent of the victims (article 197.3) and solicitation or use of minors for pornographic purposes and possession of child pornography (article 189, 1 and 5 of the Penal Code).

The TSJC announced the decision in a brief statement which does not mention the names of the footballers, but does specify that it affects the four players involved in the investigation, namely Raul Asencio, Andres Garcia, Ferran Ruiz and Juan Rodríguez, the latter three of whom are no longer with the club.

Neither has it detailed what acts are attributed to each of them, nor has the judicial resolution been made public, because it contains intimate details regarding a minor. The events allegedly took place on 15 June 2023 in a tourist complex in the south of Gran Canaria, when the four footballers met the two complainants, aged 16 and 18 at the time of the events.

According to the complaint filed at the time by the underage girl's mother, she had consensual sexual relations with the footballers, although she did not give permission for them to record her, let alone for them to share the video via WhatsApp, as they later discovered had allegedly happened.

Then, the second young woman, who is of legal age, also denounced the alleged dissemination of a video of sexual content which, allegedly, had been recorded by one of the persons under investigation while they were having consensual relations, although in her case the recording and subsequent dissemination of the images were not consensual either.

After learning of this indictment, Asencio's lawyer, Juan Gonzalo Ospina, has declined to make an assessment to 'EFE', although sources close to the case have confirmed that all the appeals deemed appropriate against this judicial resolution will be presented.

The order itself specifies that it is possible for both the defence and the prosecution to lodge an appeal for reform, that is, to ask the judge who issued it to reconsider his decision.