Marbella police officers held in connection with sexual assault are suspended from duties

The two Marbella Local Police officers who are under investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting two young women have been suspended from duties.

The judge investigating the case ordered the precautionary suspension of employment of the policemen, according to SUR, following their arrest. Both officers have been remanded in custody.

In the early hours of 12 July, the two policemen were on an undercover patrol near the boundary between Marbella and Estepona when they stopped two South American women and asked them for their documents, however, they could not prove that they were in Spain legally.

Several hours later, they went to a secluded area where the officers, then apparently off duty, allegedly had sex with the women.

According to sources close to the case, the investigation is centred on an audio recording that the women provided when they reporting the incident on 31 July, as one of them recorded all of the conversations she had with one of the officers.

The women claimed that they felt coerced into having sex in exchange for allegedly not reporting their immigration status to authorities. The judge found that there may have been "intimidation" involved, as the women said, and that the men had abused their power as police officers.

The officers argued that the sexual relations were consensual at all times. The officers' lawyer, Juan Miguel Rueda, of the law firm Herrera & Ábalos Abogados, said that that they will fight for the presumption of innocence and refused to make any other comment on the case.