Karate teacher who admitted abusing five minors dies by suicide in prison

Plea deal and sentence

Carlos F., a 67-year-old karate teacher, agreed on 27 October 2026 to a prison term before the Audiencia de Barcelona. He admitted abusing five of his pupils, all minors, at the Claret sports centre in Barcelona, where he had taught since 2018. ABC and El Periódico reported the sentence as 26 years, while El Mundo and LaVanguardia wrote 26 and a half years. According to ABC, six other complaints were archived because the alleged acts had already prescribed. Under the agreement, 140,000 euros in compensation for the victims was transferred, and his death came two days later.

A long teaching career and an earlier conviction

ABC reports that he had taught karate since the 1990s and held an eighth dan black belt. In 2000 he received a final conviction for sexual abuse, with a nine-month fine. El Periódico lists gyms where he taught in Barcelona, including Sport 2000, Set i Mig, Podium and X Fit, as well as extracurricular classes at the La Salle Gràcia school. At the Claret centre he had a small office and keys that let him enter when no one else was present. Prosecutors said he demanded that pupils call him 'sensei' and that he used his considerable influence over the children to abuse them.

How the abuse came to light

According to LaVanguardia, the abuse took place between 2015 and 2023. The case began when the parents of two children talked to them about the fact that no one had the right to touch them without their consent. One of the boys, a minor, then wrote them a letter disclosing abuse by his karate instructor. That letter led to a complaint and an investigation by the Mossos d'Esquadra, which ended with Carlos F.'s arrest and remand in custody in May 2023. Prosecutors initially asked for 35.5 years for continued assault and sexual abuse, plus a child pornography offence because he also recorded some of the victims. Before the trial scheduled for October at the Audiencia de Barcelona, he accepted the plea agreement, after about three years in pre-trial detention.

Death in Brians 1

Officers found him without signs of life in his cell during the morning headcount on 29 October 2026, at Brians 1 prison in Sant Esteve Sesrovires. Emergency services were alerted and could not revive him. The Department of Justice said that the protocols for an inmate's self-harm had been activated and that the Suicide Prevention Programme (PPS) had not been active for him. El Periódico reported the same lack of monitoring. LaVanguardia reported that the Department counted the death as the ninth suicide this year, while El Mundo described him as the ninth prisoner to take his own life in Catalonia in 2026.