Prosecutor Marta Durántez has charged blunt this Wednesday against Luis Rubiales, former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), during her final allegation in the trial held by the National Court for the kiss that the president gave to the player Jennifer Hermos After the 2023 World Cup final, and for the alleged coercion he later promoted for her to come out in public to justify it. “This lady never wanted to give her a Piquito”, The representative of the Public Ministry has repeated, who has maintained his request for two and a half years in jail for Rubiales. Durántez has stressed that the athlete “never consented” the kiss; that generated discomfort and that he informed his brother, friends and companions; and that the victim cannot be subtracted credibility for participating in the celebrations of the title: “Did she have no right to celebrate a sports triumph of such an entity?”
The public accusation has stressed that, since the scandal broke out, Hermoso has maintained a “coherent”, “plausible”, “resounding” and “clear” story. As the prosecutor stressed, even during his interrogation at the trial, the footballer “not even dramatized the situation.” He also explained that, in radio statements a few minutes after the kiss, he tried to take iron from the matter so that the media focus of the victory of the section did not deviate. “It was an unseeled kiss. There is no doubt of doubt, ”said Durantez. “There is total coherence between the facts narrated by her and her behavior. And it is surrounded by corroborations ”, such as the statements of the witnesses. Among them, his brother, his friends, his companions and several workers and high positions of the RFEF as Rafael del Amo, former vice president of the agency.
“At no time said that he consented to the kiss,” the prosecutor continued. He recalled that his brother and a friend said that, on the same grass of the Sydney Olympic stadium (Australia) who welcomed the final, the footballer already told them that the kiss had given him “disgust”. And that she also confessed to her companions her discomfort in the same bus that took them from the sports complex to the airport: “From the outset, it already shows a state of surprise or shock. He immediately has the need to tell it. ” “There is no reasonable doubt that contradicts the victim and the other witnesses who have declared,” he said. Faced with this, Durantez has questioned the version of Rubiales, the “superior” of the player, who said Tuesday that he asked Hermos if she could give her “a little kiss” and that she replied that yes – a extreme that the athlete denies.
The prosecutor has also charged against the attempts to discredit the victim for their behavior after the kiss. “We are in 2025 and, as a prosecutor, it still gives me some rejection – especially, with the law we have and jurisprudence – having to be asking a victim of sexual assault why he laughed, why he celebrated it, why He drank champagne, why he ate … How long are we going to be demanding from the victim of sexual aggression a heroic behavior? Didn’t she have the right to celebrate a sports triumph of such an entity?
Thus he has continued Durantez: “It is clear that she had feelings found. She wanted to go unnoticed: that all this would not remain in the unseeled kiss, but in the triumph of the selection. What can we demand that you do? What goes to a corner to cry? What mount a show? Can we demand that? Is he less victim for that? Do you have to show a plus? Why is it not done in other crimes? Anyone who steals and goes to eat with his friends is less victim? ”He asked:“[Él] He kisses a player when there is an anti -state protocol that says that these behaviors are totally prohibited and that they are reprehensible. ”
Against the expert report
To reinforce his thesis, the Public Ministry has focused on demonstrating that there was no “previous animosity” against the former president of the Federation. “She said it herself. And Rubiales said it in his statement, when he affirms that there was a good relationship among them, ”Durántez stressed. “There is no precedent of animosity that leads beautiful to miss the truth,” he said before attacking against the expert report that the defense has presented. In that document incorporated into view, a deaf person states that, after visualizing a Tiktok video about the kiss, it clearly appreciates a movement of Rubiales lips: “[Dijo]: ‘Can I give you a kiss? ”, Said this expert by ratifying his analysis before the court.
But the prosecutor has subtracted all credibility: “It is a manipulated expertise and ad hocwithout judicial intervention. ” And he added that, in the “hypothetical” case that the ex -president said that, beautiful insists that he never listened to him and never answered him. “It’s more, if they tell me ‘can I give you a little kiss?’ Lips is a clearly intimate act, even more than some touching. ”
The ‘omertá’
“The humiliation and indignation for the victim is greater when, on top of that, that act has to witness the entire world,” the prosecutor continued: “Because it occurred publicly. Is that he saw it, not all of Spain, he saw it all. ” According to his narration, from then on, a wave of coercion was also triggered to try to force Hermoso to justify the president: “What makes the behavior of the kiss even more burdensome and unlawful.” “What would have been easier for her? Give up? ”He has questioned. “It would have been better. But there are certain principles that some people do: that are dignity, values, courage and defend the truth of what happened, ”he added.
“We are facing a simple player (I do not say it in a pejorative sense for her) faced against a whole soccer federation, with all a power … and a president who is not to send much, is that he sent everything,” he said argued the representative of the Public Ministry. In fact, according to its version, the RFEF dome was put at the service of Rubiales to save it: among them, Jorge Vilda, then coach of the women’s team; Albert Luque, director of the male selection; and Rubén Rivera, responsible for marketing De la RFEF – the three are accused in this coercion trial and face a penalty request for a year and a half in jail. “If he fell, others fell,” he added: “Taking advantage of [Rubiales] of his absolute and omnimous power, and that he could remove and put [a cualquiera]an authentic Omertá. There no one could contradict, there was put and said what Mr. Rubiales wanted. ”
Durántez has said: “They worried their beach bar.” “And she was alone,” he added, before stating the “manipulations” and “intimidating situations” that followed in the different scenarios where those alleged coercion occurred so that beautiful came out in public to justify Rubiales, although she He refused: in the stadium’s own locker room, on the bus to the airport, on the plane back to Spain and in Ibiza, where the team was later celebrated – Luque and Rivera traveled there. “It was, at all costs, getting what they wanted,” the prosecutor concluded: “She had to go to the psychologist, she had to live that humiliation, she had to justify herself, she was not allowed to enjoy the triumph … She will remain like ‘the kiss’. Yes, yes, it’s that sad. For her? Because of him? No, no, no, for the behavior of those who performed that criminal action. ”
