The Military room has confirmed the sentence to between 8 and 10 months in prison imposed on five Army sergeants for harassing another fellow sergeant in the Mistral Battery of the 93rd Field Artillery Regiment (RACA 93) of Tenerifewhere they were stationed, from 2015 to 2017.
The Chamber dismisses the appeals of cassation filed by the five soldiers against the sentence of a Military Court that sentenced one of the sergeants to 10 months in prison and the other four to 8 months in prison for a consummated crime against the exercise of rights fundamental and public liberties of the military, article 50 of the Military Penal Code, in its modality of seriously attacking the personal dignity or in the work of soldiers of the same job in facilities of the FAS or affected by them or with publicity. In addition, it sentenced all of them to compensate the sergeant who was the victim of the crime with 3,000 euros for moral damages.
The facts show that the harassed soldier, despite not being the oldest, was placed by the Unit Brigade in the simulator, a highly specialized position in the Mistral Battery. The five convicts who called his superior “rat”, without his knowledge, began to use that term to refer to his partner, due to the good relationship he had with the Brigade.
In September 2015, the Brigade and the harassed soldier traveled with a group of troops from the Unit to the Segovia Artillery Academy to carry out training and evaluation exercises in the simulator from Monday to Friday. The troop raised the possibility of advancing the evaluation to Thursday so that they could go out that night without the pressure of having to be evaluated the next day. The sergeant rejected the request because he considered that he had gone to Segovia to work.
Back in Tenerife, a soldier made him ugly by revealing to the Brigade that another sergeant had taken a day of his own business due to a hangover. From that moment on, according to the proven facts, “the pressure” on him increased.
Throughout 2016 and until he was discharged from a psychiatric hospital, he was displaced from the group of convicted sergeants and was subjected to constant insults. They called him “snitch”, “rat”, “Brigada’s cocksucker”, “Brigada’s little bitch” and he was the object of rude taunts for his relationship with him, such as when they asked him if “he had had his fill of chicken cake” after going to the that one’s birthday
The Chamber considers that the sentence under appeal analyzes in detail the concurrence in the case of all the elements of the criminal type applied, and among them “the reiteration and seriousness of the harassment actions carried out by the five appellants against the Sergeant…, the which go far beyond the mere disciplinary sphere”.
In the same way, it indicates that the subjective element of the type concurs, constituted by the generic fraud consisting of the full awareness and will on the part of the appellants to carry out the various denigrating behaviors against the Sergeant…, “with the sole purpose of of undermining their personal and professional dignity.”
The judgment explains that “when these behaviors are carried out in a constant, systematic and permanent way, in such a way that they cause a serious disturbance in their well-being in the person who suffers them, causing feelings of vexation, humiliation and objectification and a mental deterioration, the attack occurs grave to dignity provided for in the rate applied”.
