The five members of La Manada - the 'wolf pack' - who had been held in the Spanish prisons of Pamplona and Alcalá Meco left the two penitentiaries on Friday afternoon after depositing the 6,000 euros in bail set by the Navarra regional court hearing their appeal. The court decision to grant the men bail, announced on Thursday, unleashed a wave of criticism against Spanish justice. On Friday, the three men in Pamplona left jail around six in the afternoon and the two in the Madrid prison of Alcalá Meco, at half past seven.
The three members of the group who had been in the Pamplona prison are José Ángel Prenda, Jesús Escudero and Ángel Boza. They were picked up by vehicles that were waiting for them at the door of the prison. The two others, both of them members of Spain's security forces, Civil Guard agent Antonio Manuel Guerrero and member of the Military Emergency Services unit Alfonso Jesús Cabezuelo have left the prison of Alcalá Meco in the same taxi.
The members of La Manada, found guilty of sexual abuse and sentenced to nine years in prison, have been released after almost two years in prison since they were arrested on 7th July, 2016.
The Navarra court's ruling granting the five men bail concludes that there is no significant risk of flight since the sentences given to the men are "notably" less than what the prosecutors requested, and nor, according to the court document, was there considered to be risk of repeat offending.
In the ruling, decided by a majority of two magistrates to one, it is argued that remanding the prisoners in custody had been linked to the more severe sentences demanded for the original accusations of rape and because of the trial was due imminently, but the court report concludes that "these arguments have lost much of the strength that they may have had".
Both the autonomous government of Navarra and the Pamplona city council, which were public complainants in the case, have announced that they will appeal the bail decision, while the public prosecutor will also appeal the Navarra court's ruling.