Former Galician MP sentenced to 9 years for rape and syphilis

Xabier Ron, former AGE MP, sentenced to 9 years for raping a minor

On 2 July 2026, the Provincial Court of A Coruña sentenced Xabier Ron Fernández, a former member of the Parliament of Galicia for Alternativa Galega de Esquerda (AGE), the coalition led by Xosé Manuel Beiras and backed by Yolanda Díaz. The sentence: nine and a half years in prison for continued sensual assault on a 12-year-old girl, whom he also subjected to sadistic practices and infected with syphilis. The case came to light precisely because of the infection: the girl, who was 12 in 2024 and 17 at the time of the verdict, went to the doctor and tests revealed the sensual transmitted disease, which led to the complaint.

Details of the sentence and the plea agreement

The verdict was reached through a plea agreement between the parties, avoiding a full trial. In addition to the prison term, Ron must pay the victim 82,000 euros in compensation and is barred from approaching or contacting her for 19 and a half years. He will also serve ten years of supervised release after completing his sentence, and is banned for 15 years from working in any profession involving contact with minors. The former MP had been in pre-trial detention since January 2025, when he was arrested by the Guardia Civil in an operation that was kept secret at the time due to "the sensitivity of the matter".

The convict's profile and his political circle

Xabier Ron was the girl's teacher at a school in Santiago de Compostela. His membership of AGE, a Galician nationalist left-wing coalition, and his political closeness to Yolanda Díaz have put the spotlight on how such cases are handled in the vice-president's circle. He is not the only one: the thread mentions the case of Ramiro Santalices, an adviser to Díaz in Ferrol convicted of possession of child prono, and a third case of a teacher who fled to Cuba and was arrested in November. The accumulation of three cases in her closest circle has drawn criticism over media silence and the lack of reaction from feminist movements, which have been vocal in other cases.

The numbers behind the punishment: proportionate or lenient?

The 9.5-year sentence has been compared with other recent cases. For example, two young men were sentenced to 14 years for raping a drunk woman in Bilbao, which some see as an unjustified disparity when the victim is a 12-year-old girl. The cost to the public purse of the investigation and trial, as well as the electoral impact in Galicia, are aspects analysts have begun to quantify. The 82,000-euro compensation, though considerable, amounts to less than 6,000 euros per year of abuse, a figure considered insufficient in the debate to repair the damage.

The unsettling detail

That syphilis was the key that uncovered the case is an uncomfortable reminder: without that infection, the abuse might have continued with impunity. Justice, in this case, acted through medical chance, not prevention. And although the conviction is final, the sense that the system has cracks – from the initial opacity to a sentence many see as too soft – does not go away.