ROME (ITALY)
Crux
November 19, 2018
By Inés San Martín
A Spanish layman and member of Opus Dei was sentenced to 11 years in prison Thursday after he was found guilty of sexually abusing a minor. The ruling comes after prosecutors had asked for a 20-month sentence, saying they doubted some of the testimony of the victim.
José María Martínez Sanz, professor of the all-male school Gaztelueta in Leioa, northern Spain, was accused of abusing a student from 2008 to 2010, when the student was 12 and 13 years old. The case had been investigated by ecclesial authorities and the school, but nothing came of those probes.
The professor, who no longer works in the school, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison by a Spanish judge and has been banned from contacting the victim for the next 15 years.
During the trial Martínez insisted on his innocence, and prosecutors acknowledged they had doubts regarding some of the allegations. However, the lawyer of the victim argued that at the beginning, the victim hadn’t told the whole story because he was ashamed. According to him, the abuse escalated from indecent touching to penetration.
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