BOOK I
General provisions on felonies and misdemeanours, the persons responsible, the penalties, security measures and other consequences of criminal offences

TITLE XXIV
Crimes against the International Community

CHAPTER III
On crimes against protected persons and assets in the event of armed conflict

Article 608

For the purposes of this Chapter, the following are intended as protected persons :

1. The wounded, the sick or shipwrecked, and the medical or religious personnel protected by the First and Second Geneva Conventions dated on 12th August 1949, or the First Additional Protocol dated on 8th June 1977 ;
2. Prisoners of war protected by the Third Geneva Convention dated on 12th August 1949 or the First Additional Protocol dated on 8th June 1977 ;
3. The civilian population and individual civilian protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention dated on 12th August 1949 and by the First Additional Protocol dated on 8th June 1977 ;
4. Non-combatants and the personnel of the Protecting Power and its Substitute protected by the Geneva Conventions dated on 12th August 1949 or by the First Additional Protocol dated on 8th June 1977.
5. Parliamentarians and the persons accompanying them, protected by the Second Convention of The Hague dated on 29th July 1899 ;
6. The United Nations and associated personnel, protected by the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel, dated on 9th December 1994 ;
7. Any others with that status by virtue of the Second Additional Protocol dated 8th June 1977, or any other international treaties to which Spain is a party.

Article 609

Whoever, during an armed conflict, physically abuses or seriously endangers the life, health or integrity of any protected person, subjects him to torture or inhumane treatment, including biological experiments, causes him serious suffering or subjects him to any medical act that is not in keeping with his state of health, nor according to the generally recognised medical standards that the Party responsible would apply to its own nationals not detained under similar medical circumstances, shall be punished with a sentence of imprisonment from four to eight years, without prejudice to the punishment that might be appropriate for the damaging results caused.

Article 610

Whoever, during an armed conflict, uses or orders methods or means of combat that are prohibited or intended to cause unnecessary suffering or superfluous harm, as well as those conceived to cause, or that can be reasonably be expected to cause extensive, lasting and serious damage to the natural environment, compromising the health or survival of the population, or who orders all-out war, shall be punished with a sentence of imprisonment from ten to fifteen years, without prejudice to the relevant punishment for the results caused.

Article 611

Whoever perpetrates the following acts during an armed conflict shall be punished with a sentence of imprisonment from ten to fifteen years, without prejudice to the relevant punishment for the results caused :

1. Conducts or orders indiscriminate or excessive attacks or makes the civil population the target of attacks, retaliation or acts or threats of violence, the main purpose of which is to strike fear therein ;
2. Destroys or damages, breaching the rules of International Law applicable to armed conflicts, the non-military ships or aircraft of an adversary or neutral party, unnecessarily and without allowing time or without adopting the necessary measures to provide for the safety of persons and conservation of the ship’s papers ;
3. Forces a prisoner of war or a civilian to serve, in any way, in the Armed Forces of the adversary, or deprives him of his right to a due and impartial process of law ;
4. Deports, forcibly transports, takes hostage or unlawfully detains or confines any protected person or uses him to protect certain military locations, zones or forces from an attack by the adversary ;
5. Transports and settles population from the side occupying, directly or indirectly, in the occupied territory, to reside there permanently ;
6. Perpetrates, orders the carrying out or maintains, with regard to any protected person, practices of racial segregation and other inhumane and degrading practices based on other distinctions of an unfavourable nature, that amount to an outrage against personal dignity ;
7. Prevents or delays, without reason, the release or repatriation of prisoners of war or civilians ;
8. Declares the rights and actions by the nationals of the adversary to be abolished, suspended or inadmissible before a Judge or Court of Law ;
9. Attacks the sexual freedom of a protected person by committing acts of rape, sexual slavery, induced or forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilisation or any other kind of sexual assault.

Article 612

Whoever perpetrates the following acts during an armed conflict shall be punished with a sentence of imprisonment of three to seven years, without prejudice to the relevant punishment for the results caused :

1. Knowingly violates the protection due to hospitals, installations, materiel, units and means for health transport, prisoner camps, sanitary and safety zones and locations, neutralised zones, locations for internment of the civil population, undefended locations and demilitarised zones, made known by the appropriate and distinctive signs ;
2. Acts with violence against the medical or religious staff or those forming medical missions or aid organisations, or against the personnel authorised to use then signs and distinctive signals, established by the Geneva Conventions, pursuant to International Law ;
3. Severely abuses, deprives or does not ensure the essential food or necessary medical assistance to any protected person, or subjects him to humiliating or degrading treatment, fails to inform him of his situation without justified delay, and in a comprehensible manner, imposes collective punishment for individual acts, or infringes the requisites for accommodation of women and families, or for special of women and children established in the international treaties to which Spain is a party, and in particular, who recruits or enrols persons under the age of eighteen or uses them to participate directly in the hostilities ;
4. Unduly uses the protective or distinctive signs, emblems or signals established and recognised in the international treaties to which Spain is a party, especially the distinctive signs of the Red Cross, of the Red Crescent and the Red Crystal.
5. Unduly or perfidiously uses a flag, uniform, insignia or distinctive emblem of neutral States, of the United Nations or other States that are not parties to the conflict, or of the adversaries, during attacks or to cover, favour, protect or hinder military operations, except in the cases specifically foreseen in the international treaties to which Spain is a party ;
6. Unduly or perfidiously uses the flag of parley or surrender to attack the inviolability or unduly retain the negotiator or any of the persons accompanying him, personnel of the Protecting Power or its Substitute, or a member of an International Fact Finding Commission ;
7. Strips a corpse, the wounded, sick, shipwrecked, prisoner of war or interned civilian of his belongings ;
8. Intentionally starves the civilian population as a means of warfare, depriving it of the indispensable resources for survival, including the act of randomly obstructing aid supplies conducted pursuant to the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols ;
9. Violates a ceasefire, armistice, capitulation or another arrangement made with the adversary ;
10. Intentionally attacks any member of the United Nations and associated personnel, or that participating in a peace or humanitarian aid mission pursuant to the United Nations Charter, as long as they are entitled to the protection granted to civilians or civil objects, pursuant to International Law on armed conflicts, or threaten them with such an attack to oblige a natural or legal person to carry out or abstain from carrying out any act.

Article 613

1. Whoever perpetrates or orders any of the following actions during an armed conflict shall be punished with a sentence of imprisonment from four to six years :

a) Attacks or targets cultural property or places of worship that are the cultural or spiritual heritage of persons as an object of reprisals or acts of hostility, as long as those assets or locations are not in the immediate vicinity of a military objective and are not used to support the military effort by the adversary and are duly marked ;
b) Makes undue use of the cultural property or places of worship referred to in Sub-Section a) to support military action ;
c) Appropriates on a large scale, robs, sacks or perpetrates acts of vandalism against the cultural property or places of worship referred to in Sub-Section a) ;
d) Attacks or makes assets of a civil nature of the adversary a target for reprisals or acts of hostility, when this does not provide, under the circumstances of the case, a defined military advantage, or when those assets do not contribute effectively to the military action of the adversary ;
e) Attacks, destroys, removes or puts assets that are indispensable for survival of the civilian population out of service, except if the adversary uses those assets to directly support military action, or exclusively as a means of subsistence for members of its armed forces ;
f) Attacks or makes works or facilities that contain hazardous substances or energy the target of reprisals when such attacks might cause those substances to be released and thus cause major damage to the civilian population, except if those works or installations are used to support in a regular, significant and direct way military operations and those attacks are the only feasible way to end that support ;
g) Destroys, damages or seizes, without military need, items that do not belong to him, obliging another to hand them over or perpetrating any other acts of pillage ;
h) Unduly or unnecessarily confiscates moveable personal or real property in the occupied territory or destroys non- military ships or aircraft and their cargo, of an adversary or neutral party, or captures them in breach of the applicable international provisions on armed conflicts at sea ;
i) Attacks or carries out acts of hostility against installations, material, units, private residences or vehicles of any member of the personnel stated in Section 10 of Article 612, or threatens to carry out such attacks or acts of hostility to oblige a natural or legal person to carry out or to abstain from carrying out any act.

2. When the reprisal, act of hostility or undue use targets cultural property or places of worship under special protection, or those granted protection by virtue of special agreements, or buildings that are cultural property or places of worship under reinforced protection, or their immediate surroundings, the higher degree punishment may be handed down.

In the other cases foreseen in the preceding Section of this Article, the higher degree punishment may be imposed when extensive, major destruction is caused to assets, works or facilities covered by these, or in cases of extreme severity.

Article 614

Whoever, during an armed conflict, perpetrates or orders any other violations or acts contrary to the provisions of the international treaties to which Spain is a party and related to how hostilities are conducted, regulation of the means and methods of combat, protection of the wounded, the sick and shipwrecked, due treatment of prisoners of war, protection of civilians and protection of cultural property in the case of armed conflict, shall be punished with a sentence of imprisonment of six months to two years.

Article 614 bis

When any of the conducts set forth in this Chapter form part of a plan or policy or are committed on a major scale, the upper half of the respective penalties shall be applied.