Former Lointek Gernika coach sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison for repeated sexual assaults on a minor
Bilbao / Madrid - CET
Mario López, former coach of the Lointek Gernika basketball club and of the lower teams of the Spanish national team, has been sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison for the continued crime of sexual assault of a player who was a minor.
The Sixth Section of the Biscayan Court has considered proven that in 1998, when the victim was 13 years old and the defendant 31, he sexually assaulted the minor on fifty occasions, conduct that was "increasingly acquiring relevance in terms of frequency and intensity."
The sentence, which can be appealed before the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country, concludes that the defendant acted taking advantage of his knowledge of the minor's personal and family situation, "exercising the position of power conferred on him by the age difference", as well as his status as coach and the "fear" she felt towards him.
The accused was coach of the Lointek basketball team for more than two decades. The club decided to fire Mario López at the end of 2023 , just after this newspaper reported on the case involving the coach, who had also been the coach of Spain's women's basketball team in the under-16, under-18 and under-19 categories, with which he won five European championships and two world runner-up positions.
The 016 telephone line serves victims of gender-based violence, their families and those around them 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 53 different languages. The number is not recorded on the telephone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. You can also contact them via email at [email protected] and via WhatsApp at 600 000 016. Minors can contact the ANAR Foundation telephone number 900 20 20 10. If it is an emergency situation, you can call 112 or the National Police (091) and Civil Guard (062) telephone numbers. And if you cannot call, you can use the ALERTCOPS application, from which an alert signal is sent to the Police with geolocation.
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