National
Spanish Justice Minister leaves door open to chemical castration for paedophiles
By h.b.
Jun 6, 2008 - 7:53 AM

The Spanish Minister for Justice, Mariano Fernández Bermejo, speaking in an interview with the business newspaper ‘Expansión’, has left the door open to the chemical castration of paedophiles. Bermejo tells the paper that he thinks that ‘professionals could apply treatments to inhibit sexual desire’ and this could be used as a means of control on paedophiles that have completed their jail term. He said he did not like to use the expression ‘chemical castration’, but there were medications which inhibited sexual desire.

There has been considerable debate in Spain as to what happens on the release of paedophiles and other sexual offenders from prison with some high-profile media cases highlighting the problem.

The Minister’s comments come in the week that the Spanish Congress approved the creation of a register for paedophiles after the campaign by Juan José Cortés, the father of Mari Luz Cortés, the Huelva five year old killed by a paedophile. He has so far amassed 500,000 signatures in a campaign calling for life imprisonment for paedophile killers.

In other areas the Minister told the paper that he thought that Ibarretxe’s idea of a referendum in the Basque Country, which Madrid has deemed illegal, would finally end in nothing, but he also admitted that the Spanish judiciary system suffers from the serious problem of ‘endemic slowness’.