The leader of the child pornography network of Tortosa alleges consent of the victims

The two main defendants the child pornography network uncovered in 2015 in Tortosa (Baix Ebre) they have sat on the bench of the accused in the Tarragona Court, where this Tuesday the trial of a plot in which there are already four members in prison began. Jean Luc Aschbacher, considered the leader, has been the first to testify while the other defendant, his collaborator, will do so on the last day.

The brain of the network has acknowledged the facts, but he has differentiated between the material he distributed for adults and the one he made for his private use, with boys under 14 years of age and with their consent, factor that for the Directorate General of Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA) of the Generalitat, which uncovered the case, would not even have to be taken into consideration in a case of sexual abuse of minors, in which there was more than a hundred victims.

The largest child pornography network in Spain

It is considered the largest network of child pornography detected in Spain, to which more than a million files of pornographic content intervened. The group captured minors, most of them a very vulnerable profile and unstructured families, to produce pornographic material in a Tortosa flat in exchange for small amounts of money.

Of the seven defendants in the case, four have been tried and imprisoned, one is on the run, with a search and arrest warrant (Youness in Naciri), and two, who had also fled, are once again in trial: the alleged plot brain (Jean Luc Aschbacher) and one of his collaborators (Christian Arson). Of the 103 victims identified, only 7 were minors under guardianship. The Generalitat has appeared as a private prosecution in the case.

Videos with the tests

Lawyer Marià VallèsAfter the oral hearing behind closed doors, he maintains that the leader of the group has wanted to show regret and that he has denied having had sexual relations with the minors, but, according to the lawyer, there are videos that prove it.

Young people underwent fellatio, masturbation or complete sexual intercourse, for amounts as ridiculous as 5 euros. The defense attorney, Rafael Cuella, has insisted that it was material for private use and that it was with the consent of those involved. The consent of the minors will be one of the topics of the court’s debate during the trial. The defense bases its argument on this question, since the minority can be between 13 or 16 years old, depending on the current penal code or the country, among other things. The Generalitat, as a private accusation, does not want to validate it. The general director of the DGAIA, Ester Cabanes, also summoned this Tuesday to testify, believes that consent cannot be “nor raised” in cases of abuse of minors.

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The alarm came when some young people sneaked out of a residential educational action centers (CRAE) in Tortosa. “We never would have thought it was such a serious issue,” he said.

The two defendants are accused of sexual abuse, corruption of minors and production and distribution of pornographic material with minors and belonging to a criminal organization. Aschbacher faces a sentence that adds up to 1,179 years in prison, and for Arson, the prosecution requests 720 years of deprivation of liberty, according to the brief of provisional findings.