Minor threats in Spain: Concepts and forms of offences

The crime of threats includes the action or expression that anticipates the intention of harming or endangering another person. It's typified and regulated in the Spanish Penal Code in articles 169 to 171.

Crime of threats

The crime of threats includes expressing the intention to cause future harm to an individual or their relatives.

The Penal Code states that anyone who threatens to cause harm to some other person, their family or other persons with whom the latter is intimately linked might be committing the crime of threats.

Anyone who threatens someone else with harming them, their family or other persons with whom they are intimately linked, which constitutes crimes of homicide, injury, abortion, against freedom, torture and against moral integrity, sexual freedom, privacy, honour, property and socio-economic order, will probably be punished:

1. A prison sentence of someone to five years, if the threat has been created by demanding a amount of money or imposing any condition, even if it is not unlawful, and the guilty party has achieved their aim. If he hasn't succeeded, the penalty shall be imprisonment for a term of half a year to three years.

The penalties lay out in the earlier paragraph will probably be increased by half if the threats are manufactured in writing, by telephone or by any means of communication or reproduction, or with respect to real or supposed entities or groups.

2. With a prison sentence of between six months and couple of years when the threat wasn't conditional.

Article 169 of the Criminal Code

However, an offense is not necessarily committed when threatening another person. The Penal Code specifies the requirements for threats to become a criminal offence or not.

Requirements for a risk to become a criminal offence

This really is one of the most subjective of all of the offences included in the Criminal Code.

One individual can understand as a risk something that someone else mightn't do; therefore, it is vital to own reliable evidence of what happened (documents, witnesses, recordings, etc.) in order to manage to clarify prior to the judge what each individual understands as a risk and under what circumstances it has occurred. Along with this, there has to be certain requirements within the threat itself for the act to be understood as a crime.


Along with carrying out the action of threatening, the alleged perpetrator must carry out the threats with actions that constitute a crime.

Quite simply, it's not enough merely to threaten to commit the offence. It is also necessary that the action that is supposed to cause harm to some other, that action with that your threat is manufactured, is classified as a criminal offence.

A crime of threats is committed when, in addition to the threat, this threat constitutes a crime of: homicide, injury, abortion, against freedom, torture, against moral integrity, against sexual freedom, intimacy, honour, patrimony or socio-economic order.

Example: each time a person says to another person "I'm planning to kill you!", he is threatening and, furthermore, the fact of killing constitutes a crime of homicide, so we're working with an offense of threats.

Example: each time a person says to some other person "I'm not speaking with you anymore, don't ever talk to me again!", this threat doesn't constitute an offense and therefore can not be classified as a frightening offence.

Forms of threatening offences and penalties

● Threats made by demanding an amount or imposing a number of conditions, even though these conditions aren't an offence. Example: "I'll kill you if you do not pay me your son's debt" ;.
○ Once the offender achieves his objective: 1 to 5 years imprisonment.
○ If the offender doesn't achieve his objective: 6 months to 3 years imprisonment.

● Threat manufactured in a non-conditional manner. Example: "I'll kill you and your family!
○ Sentence of 6 months to 2 years imprisonment.

● Threats made towards populations, ethnic, cultural or religious groups, a collective or any other number of persons:
○ Penalties higher in degree than those foreseen above.

● If the threats publicly call for the commission of terrorist acts:
○ Penalty of 6 months to 3 years imprisonment.

● Threatening having an evil that does not constitute danger when they are serious and with the objective assessment of the reality:
○ Penalty of 3 months to 1 year imprisonment or even a fine of 6 to 24 months.

● If the offender achieves his objective: The penalty shall be imposed in top of the 1 / 2 of the sentence.

● When the threat consists of receiving a reward in trade for not publishing or disseminating details about the private life or family relations of another:

● When the offender achieves his objective: Penalty of 2 to 4 years imprisonment.

If the offender doesn't succeed: 4 months to 2 years imprisonment.
If a threat is built to report an offense:

The prosecutor may not charge the offence if the offence is punishable by 2 years' imprisonment or less.

For more details kindly visit se puede denunciar por insultos (can be reported for insults).