Three off-duty Canadian police officers face sexual assault charges in Spain after an alleged incident in Barcelona.
MADRID: Three off-duty Canadian police officers have been arrested in Spain over the alleged assault of a woman while on holiday in Barcelona, officials said Thursday.
Two men were arrested on May 13, while a third was detained two days later on the Spanish island of Mallorca, where he had flown after the alleged assault, a spokesman for the Catalan regional police said.
The alleged assault took place in the early hours of May 13 while the three men were in a taxi with a prostitute in the historic centre of Barcelona, he added, saying the men groped and hit the woman.
Barcelona-based daily El Periodico de Catalunya, which first reported the story, said the men allegedly tried to force the woman to have sex with all three of them and, when she refused, the trio became aggressive.
Catalan police gave no details about the men, but a spokesman for the Toronto’s municipal police confirmed reports they were off-duty officers with the force. He told Canadian media they would be suspended.
Of the two men arrested in Barcelona, one has been charged with sexual assault and bodily harm, while the other was released, the Catalan police spokesman said. He returned to Canada but remains under investigation.
Charges for the man arrested in Mallorca have not yet been specified.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said that if the officers are found guilty, they “should be punished,” calling the allegations “serious”.
“Public trust in policing is fundamental,” she told a news conference in Toronto on Tuesday.
The case comes as Toronto’s police force reels from a series of corruption investigations involving allegations that officers took bribes and assisted drug traffickers, damaging its reputation.
