Spain's Supreme Court Upholds Santi Mina's Four-Year Prison Sentence

The legal case that has followed Santi Mina for the past several years has reached its conclusion. Spain's Supreme Court upheld the four-year prison sentence against the soccer player for a sexual abuse offense committed in July 2017, when the incident took place inside a van parked near a nightclub in Mojacar, Almeria, where the player was spending the night with a group of friends.

The Criminal Chamber rejected the appeal Mina had filed against the ruling from the High Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), which had already confirmed the prison sentence originally imposed by the Almeria Provincial Court. The TSJA had, however, reduced the compensation owed to the victim from 50,000 to 25,000 euros, an amount that now stands final following this latest ruling.

The decision left little room for interpretation. The judges were clear in stating that the player "took advantage of the proximity, the surprise and the situation the victim found herself in to carry out two non-consensual sexual acts, stopping his actions when he realized that continuing would require overcoming resistance by force." With that statement, the Chamber ruled out any notion that there had been a misunderstanding about consent.

In fact, the court itself dismantled the defense's argument, which held that Mina might have misread a signal of acceptance from the victim. Nothing in the case file supports that version, the judges explained.

"It contains no evidence suggesting that Santiago Mina misinterpreted a sign of consent, nor does it necessarily allow for that mistaken belief to be inferred from the circumstances found to be proven"Supreme Court

Regarding the moment when the woman asked him to stop, the Supreme Court was equally firm: that action explains why the use of violence or intimidation was ruled out, but it in no way implies that she had consented beforehand, nor that the player believed he had her approval.

The victim's appeal was also rejected

The ruling did not only address Mina's request. The Chamber likewise dismissed the appeal filed by the victim, who had sought to have the act classified as sexual assault involving penetration, carrying a sentence of eight years in prison, or six years as an alternative. Her request to convict the other defendant in the case, who had been acquitted, either as a necessary accomplice or as a mere accomplice, also failed to succeed.

The judicial outcome comes after Celta de Vigo, Mina's most recent club, unilaterally terminated his contract in August 2023, shortly after it became known that the TSJA had upheld the sentence imposed by the Almeria court. At that point, the player still had two years remaining on his deal with the Galician club.