Relatives of Jenni Hermoso and three players from the Spanish soccer team will testify as witnesses in the case of sexual assault and coercion against the former president of the Royal Spanish Soccer Federation (RFEF) Luis Rubiales. The judge of the National Court Francisco de Jorge has summoned them between September 25 and October 2 to give statements. This new battery of proceedings was adopted after the magistrate took Rubiales’s statement as being investigated and issued a restraining order regarding the player.
On the one hand, the instructor has summoned people from the player’s environment to relate how Rubiales’ non-consensual kiss was experienced during the celebration after winning the World Cup in Australia and, above all, the alleged pressure they received to come out publicly to deny that it would have been a non-consensual kiss and, above all, show support for the president.
Along with those close to him, who will testify next Monday, two experts proposed by Rubiales’ defense who have analyzed all the images will do so. Their objective is to demonstrate that the conversation they had was real in which the president of the RFEF supposedly asked Hermoso: “a piquito?” before giving it to him and therefore it was consented.
In addition, three teammates from the soccer team who were at the moment of the kiss and who shared with the player the subsequent moments in the locker room, bus, trip and celebration will testify on October 2.
The declaration of the four officials of the Federation will be left until September 28 to recount the conversations and meetings after the kiss and how their dismissal was forged. On the other hand, the Central Investigative Court 1 has already received, through the Australian Embassy, ??the certificate of the content of all the crimes of the Penal Code of that country in relation to the facts investigated and that are applicable in the State of New South Wales.
Now, De Jorge must analyze the crimes included in this Penal Code and assess whether Rubiales’ non-consensual kiss can be considered an illegal act in that country. According to the regulations, the judge can only continue with the investigation if the act is criminal in both countries, as it is an act that occurred abroad.
