FIN M: 5 Cuba National Team members found guilty of rape and sentenced to prison!

Cuba NT

Four players, Gavilán, Calvó, Uriarte, and the team’s captain Cepeda were sentenced to five years in prison while a fifth player, Sosa, was sentenced to three and a half years. Besides being sentenced to prison, the five players will have to pay 24,000 euros in compensation to the victim.

Prosecutor explained that the rape took place in July at a hotel in Tampere, in southern Finland, where the Cuba National Team was staying for the 2016 FIVB Men’s Volleyball World League tournament.

Although six players denied the accusations, saying that the woman agreed to sex, the Finnish media wrote that the victim had screamed and resisted after being cornered in a hotel room by several of the volleyball players who held her hands and pulled her hair. Afterward, she was raped, which was even filmed. The assault had lasted for 90 minutes.

Initially, eight members of the Cuba National Team were arrested, but two were later released without being charged. One of six players that were arrested was released from detention at the beginning of a trial.

The Cuba National Team competed in the 2016 Rio Olympics without these six players and lost all of its five games.

After the accusations emerged in July, the Cuban Volleyball Federation condemned the players’ behavior while both men’s and women’s national teams of Cuba were disqualified (official confirmation didn’t arrive yet) by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) from the next year’s editions of the World League and the World Grand Prix.

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