A judge in Madrid has summoned to testify as investigated for an alleged crime of sexual abusea national police officer who allegedly grabbed by the breasts an activist of the feminist collective Femen when he was going to arrest her after a protest developed on November 20.

The head of the Court of Instruction number 11 of Madrid will take a statement next Thursday to the member of the Police Intervention Unit (UIP), the riot police, after admitting the complaint filed by the activist considering that the facts "present characteristics that presume the possible existence of crime".

In his car, this Tuesday, April 11, the magistrate attributes to the agent a possible crime of sexual abuse.

According to the aforementioned complaint, three Femen activists, including the complainant, had agreed on November 20 to hold a "symbolic and peaceful" protest in the Plaza de Oriente in Madrid, where a rally was being held by the Spanish Catholic Movement.

The three activists, as usual in Femen's actions, planned to display messages written on their naked torso, in addition to shouting: "To fascism, no honor, no glory."

When they took off their coats, the complaint relates, "several police officers came to meet them," and then one of them proceeded to arrest two of the activists "with evident professionalism," while another agent held the complainant "squeezing her breasts with both hands, which was obviously unnecessary for the arrest."

"

He abused his situation of superiority and used his status as an agent of authority," he continues.

The sequence of events was captured by a photojournalist, who has been summoned to testify as a witness this Wednesday, the same day on which the complainant will appear.

In fact, the agent under investigation was not identified by the activist and it was the judge who, after admitting the complaint, ordered to identify him using the photographs taken by the photojournalist.

The lawyer of the complainant, Endika Zulueta, stressed that this is the first complaint filed by a Femen activist against a police officer "in Spanish judicial history", since "to date no sexual abuse had been suffered during the arrests" after the actions of the group.

  • Justice
  • National Police

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