Pedro Luis Gallego was convicted in the mid-1990s of the murders of two young women in Spain in 1992: Marta Obregón, killed in Burgos in January, and Leticia Lebrato, killed in Valladolid in July. His combined sentence was 273 years, a total that also covered 18 sexual assaults. He served about 17 of those years. In November 2013 he left prison after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Spain could not apply a Supreme Court doctrine, named after an ETA prisoner, to prisoners sentenced under the old Penal Code. Within about four years he was in custody again. In October 2019 the Audiencia Provincial de Madrid sentenced him to 96 years for offences against four young women committed between December 2016 and April 2017, and the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in 2020.
Gallego's date of birth is not on record. El Español gave his age as 59 when he was arrested in June 2017, and Diario de Valladolid gave it as 61 in October 2019. The same El Español report, a Europa Press story, says he entered prison for the first time on June 20, 1979, and that after later releases he committed further offences until his last conviction and imprisonment in the mid-1990s. The Supreme Court, in a ruling reported in November 2020, described his record as five convictions between 1987 and 1996 for rape, murder, robbery and other offences.
The courts, towns and dates of the earlier trials are not on record. The Local, an English-language news site, wrote in 2013 that he was sentenced in 1995 to 273 years, and El Español's 2017 report places his final conviction in the mid-1990s.
Marta Obregón was born in 1969 in La Coruña, the second of four sisters. In 1990 she traveled to Taizé, in France, and wrote to a friend that her faith was the most important thing in her life, according to a 2008 report by Catholic News Agency that drew on interviews with people who knew her. A friend recalled her as open and cheerful, someone who "had the gift of being liked by others." A former boyfriend described her as a person who drew others to her and made friends easily.
She was killed in Burgos in January 1992. The Church later took an interest in her life. The cause for her beatification was presented to the Presbyteral Council of Burgos in December 2006, and the Vatican granted its nihil obstat, meaning no obstacle to opening the process, in April 2007.
Leticia Lebrato was 17 when she was killed, in July 1992, in the province of Valladolid. Diario de Valladolid placed her killing about six months after that of Marta Obregón. Details of her life and family are not on record. She was killed in an event separate from Marta Obregón's, in a different city and about six months later.
Gallego was convicted of the murder of Marta Obregón and of the murder of Leticia Lebrato, with other charges in each case, and of 18 sexual assaults in total. The combined sentence was 273 years, the figure in nearly every report of the case; one 2013 legal news report gave 328 years for two murders and 18 rapes instead.
The court that tried each killing, the date of each verdict and the wording of the verdicts are not on record, nor is the way the 273-year total was reached.
Under the 1973 Penal Code, prisoners could earn reductions of their sentences. In a ruling dated February 28, 2006, in the appeal of the ETA member Henri Parot, the Supreme Court held that these reductions had to be applied to each sentence separately instead of to the 30-year maximum term of service. The effect was to keep some prisoners in custody for years longer than they had expected. It became known as the Parot doctrine.
Gallego was among those affected. The Local reported in 2013 that under the ordinary rules he would have been eligible for release since August 2011. According to El Español, a 2012 ruling of the Supreme Court's criminal chamber held that he would not leave prison until 2022, and Diario de Valladolid gives the same original release date.
The doctrine was brought down by a case with no connection to him. Inés del Río Prada, a member of ETA sentenced for 23 murders, took her case to Strasbourg. On October 21, 2013, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights confirmed an earlier chamber judgment in Del Río Prada v. Spain (application no. 42750/09). It found a violation of Article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights unanimously and a violation of Article 7 by 15 votes to 2. The court held that the change in how reductions were counted could not be applied to her, because she could not have foreseen it; it had postponed her release by about nine years. A Spanish academic journal's account of the judgment says the Audiencia Nacional ordered her release the next day, October 22, 2013.
Newspaper coverage that same week listed Gallego among the prisoners who stood to benefit, together with other prisoners sentenced under the old code for sexual offences and killings. On November 12, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that for sentences under the 1973 Code imposed before February 28, 2006 and still being served, reductions would again be applied to the statutory maximum term of service. Two days later, on November 14, 2013, a court in Burgos ordered Gallego's release, saying in a statement that it had taken the Strasbourg ruling into account. Diario de Valladolid published a photograph of him leaving Alcalá Meco prison that day. Diario de León's report said he had served 17 of the 273 years.
The Local counted him as the third convicted sex offender to be freed under the ruling, after Pablo García Ribado and Antonio García Carbonell. The report added that other courts were by then accepting appeals from a range of convicts, among them prisoners convicted of sexual offences and killings. Periodico de Ibiza wrote in 2019 that he was not under police surveillance after his release.
Between December 16, 2016 and April 14, 2017, four young women in Madrid were the targets of offences for which the Audiencia Provincial de Madrid later convicted him. Two of the four incidents were attempts. Diario de Valladolid, summarizing the judgment, gave the dates as December 16, 2016, February 19, April 2 and about April 14, 2017.
The attacks drew public alarm in the months before his arrest. El Español reported on June 15, 2017 that police had detained him on suspicion of four sexual assaults, two of them attempts, after months of investigation. According to Diario de Valladolid he was arrested on June 16, 2017.
On September 26, 2018, Investigating Court no. 33 of Madrid charged him over the same four incidents and held him in provisional detention without bail, Diario de Valladolid reported the next day. The charges listed were illegal detention, sexual assault, injuries and robbery with violence, together with a further offence that the newspaper described as one against public health.
The trial opened on October 3, 2019 before the Sixth Section of the Audiencia Provincial de Madrid. Asked by the court whether he was responsible for the acts, he answered "Me considero culpable," I consider myself guilty, and he admitted the four incidents charged. He apologized several times to the four women and to others, and he told the court he was a victim of himself because of an impulse he could not control. He asked for help with it. The prosecution sought 96 years in total. Three private prosecutions, acting for the women, sought higher terms. Testimony from the women was heard in closed session, and part of the evidence was dispensed with after the admission, Periodico de Ibiza reported.
The judgment was made public on October 21, 2019. The court convicted him of two continued counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual assault; two counts of illegal detention and two of attempted illegal detention; two counts of injuries; and two counts of robbery with violence. The total sentence was 96 years. Under Spanish law the maximum time to be served was 25 years, but the court ordered that prison leave, classification in the third degree and conditional release be calculated on the full 96 years. Diario de Valladolid also gave the individual terms and two further penalties: ten years of supervised release after the sentence, and compensation to the women totaling 141,250 euros. It quoted the court as saying that the evidence established beyond doubt that the accused had carried out the acts.
The ruling was not final when announced, and could be appealed to the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid.
The Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid upheld the sentence. Gallego then appealed to the Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeal. In an article dated November 24, 2020, Que.es reported that the Supreme Court had confirmed that his prison benefits would be calculated on the full 96 years under Article 78 of the Penal Code, citing what it called his extreme dangerousness. The prosecution had asked for that measure and the private prosecutions had joined the request. He argued that it violated the constitutional principle of social reintegration in Article 25.2; the court found that the three legal requirements for Article 78 were met and that it did not rule out rehabilitation.
The prison where he is held, and any later decision on leave or release, are not on record.
Several points in the record are not settled. The year of the main sentence is given as 1995 by one outlet and as the mid-1990s by another. The total is given as 273 years by most outlets and as 328 years by one. Marta Obregón's age is given as 19 in coverage of the 2019 trial, while the Catholic News Agency profile gives her year of birth as 1969, which would make her 22 in January 1992. The number of years he served before release appears as 17 in one outlet and as 21 in another. None of these differences affects the sequence of events: two killings in 1992, a combined sentence of 273 years, release in 2013, a second prosecution and a sentence of 96 years in 2019.
No killing other than those of Marta Obregón and Leticia Lebrato is on record as charged against him, confessed or attributed to him.
June 20, 1979: first entry to prison, according to El Español.
1987 to 1996: five convictions, according to the Supreme Court as reported in 2020.
January 1992: Marta Obregón killed in Burgos.
July 1992: Leticia Lebrato, 17, killed in Valladolid.
Mid-1990s: sentenced to 273 years in total for the two killings, with other charges, and 18 sexual assaults.
February 28, 2006: Supreme Court ruling in the Parot case establishes the doctrine.
August 2011: date from which he would have been eligible for release under the ordinary rules, according to The Local.
2012: Supreme Court criminal chamber ruling that he would not leave prison until 2022, according to El Español.
October 21, 2013: Grand Chamber judgment in Del Río Prada v. Spain.
November 12, 2013: Supreme Court ruling on sentences under the 1973 Code.
November 14, 2013: ordered released by a court in Burgos and leaves Alcalá Meco prison.
December 16, 2016 to April 14, 2017: the four incidents later tried in Madrid.
June 16, 2017: arrested.
September 26, 2018: charged by Investigating Court no. 33 of Madrid and held in provisional detention.
October 3, 2019: trial opens; he says he considers himself guilty.
October 21, 2019: Audiencia Provincial de Madrid sentences him to 96 years.
November 24, 2020: Que.es reports the Supreme Court has dismissed his appeal.