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Spain's Supreme Court has mandated the state to pay €2.5 million in damages to Ahmed Tommouhi, a Moroccan national wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years on rape charges from which he was later acquitted. Europa Press reports that this decision overturns an earlier ruling supporting the Justice Ministry's refusal to compensate him.
The court determined that «a serious error is directly, clearly, and unequivocally evident», characterized by «the omission of an objective expert test», its «incompatibility with the incriminating hypothesis, its potential to influence the decision, and the resulting disruption in the logical process by which the judicial conviction was formed». It further stated that the requirement for a prior declaration of judicial error «is considered fulfilled as this declaration unequivocally follows from the content of the review ruling».
The allegations of rape central to the case trace back to the night of November 9-10, 1991, in Tarragona's municipalities of La Secuita and La Bisbal. During this period, similar incidents occurred in the region. Two additional convictions related to events in Olesa on November 5, 1991, and in Cornellá on November 7. In 1997, the Supreme Court's Second Chamber overturned Tommouhi's sentence in the Olesa case, which had handed him 51 years in prison for rape, robbery, and kidnapping.
It wasn't until 2023 that the court overturned the Cornellá case conviction, where Tommouhi had been sentenced to 24 years and 22 days for two rapes and two counts of assault and battery. After this decision, Tommouhi sought €3.6 million in damages from the Justice Ministry. However, upon his request being declined, he pursued legal action, only to have his claim dismissed by Spain's National Court.
