Sentence footballer Rafa Mir to 8 and a half years in prison for rape

ValenciaSevilla footballer Rafa Mir has been sentenced by the Provincial Court of Valencia to 8 and a half years in prison for sexual assault and another offense of assault, as reported this Monday by the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community. The forward was arrested and released on bail after the complaint by a 21-year-old girl at the time of the events, who stated that the player and a friend of his, also footballer Pablo Jara, had sexually assaulted two women at the former's home in the town of Bétera on the night of August 31, 2024. As a consequence of the attack, the two victims required hospital assistance. The events occurred when the player was on loan to Valencia. This season, the attacker has played on loan at Elche, where he has played 27 matches and scored eight goals, and has been a key player in the team's survival.

The court also found the second defendant, footballer Pablo Jara, guilty, sentencing him to two and a half years in prison and a fine for sexual assault, an offense against moral integrity, and a minor offense of assault. The sentence, which was notified this Monday and is not yet final, establishes compensation of 64,000 euros in favor of Mir's victim and 6,280 euros for Jara's accuser. In addition, it imposes a prohibition of approach and communication on Mir for 13 years and a sentence of seven years of supervised release, to be served after the custodial sentence. In Jara's case, it also imposed five years of supervised release and seven and a half years of restraining order and prohibition of communication with respect to the victim.

During the trial, the Sevilla footballer only answered his lawyer's questions. He also denied having assaulted the girl and stated that the sexual relationship was "consensual." On the contrary, the victim narrated a double sexual assault and assured that during the rape she started "crying" due to the "fear" she had, felt she had difficulty "breathing," and asked the accused to stop, but he did not. In Jara's case, and according to the sentence, he sexually assaulted, although without carnal knowledge, the second girl by the pool.

Mir's victim detailed during the trial that the footballer, whom she did not know previously, assaulted her without her consent twice. "He put his fingers in my vagina and touched my whole body," she stated, protected by a screen. The events took place at Mir's villa, where the two men and two women went after spending a night partying at the Mya nightclub in Valencia. The girl explained that Mir raped her by the pool and in the house's bathroom. The footballer said he was surprised by the complaint and assured that when he was arrested, he believed the two girls wanted to report Jara for the punch he gave one of them before they left the house, almost naked. In line with the sevillista's testimony, Jara stated that there was "complicity" between Mir and the victim that night. What's more, he assured that the girl and her friend argued "to see who would get involved with Rafa".

The Valencia Court of Appeal has considered that the evidence provided allows for "unquestionable proof of the commission of the acts." Among these pieces of evidence are the statements of the two victims, which the magistrates describe as "convincing, consistent, and coherent," because it has "remained invariably throughout the entire processing of the case" and has been "corroborated by peripheral data, such as witness statements and the psychological forensic report, ratified and explained in the plenary session by the two experts." On the contrary, according to the court, "none of the defense allegations have had a factual basis on which to stand nor a logical reasoning to consider."

Possible perjury by three police officers

The court has also agreed to investigate the statements made during the trial by three local police officers from Bétera to see if they constitute a crime of perjury, “due to the flagrant contradiction between their version and that of the complainants”.