Investigators confirmed that the young woman group abused last Monday in the Palermo neighborhood was drugged prior to being repeatedly raped. “I left a bar, I went to take the bus and the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital,” the girl had told the police. Her statement in the Prosecutor’s Office was protected. The six arrested refused to testify during the investigation.
The girl, whom after the fact She was given the corresponding medications to avoid possible sexually transmitted infections or an eventual pregnancy.was the first to make a formal statement before Judge Marcos Fernandez and was accompanied by personnel from the General Directorate of Support, Guidance and Protection of Victims (Dovic).
The prosecution ordered toxicological tests for both the six arrested and the 20-year-old victim. Apparently, they did not know each other before the fact. Several of the detainees had scratches, so the Prosecutor’s Office assumes that possible DNA can be compared.
There is great secrecy about the development of the investigation carried out by prosecutor Eduardo Rosende. The complainant is still very affected by everything she experienced, so it was recommended that he refrain from seeing the media and that he protect himself from public exposure. The dissemination of the videos, which the City Police would have leaked, caused discomfort in the Court.
The six investigated, who are still detained -Ángel Pascual Ramos (23), Tomás Domínguez (21), Lautaro Pasotti (24), Ignacio Retondo (22), Alexis Cuzzoni (20) and Franco Lykan (24)–, refused. to testify before the judge and the prosecutor.
Five of them were assisted by the official defender Carolina Ocampo, while the rest have a private attorney and the investigations were carried out remotely by the Zoom platform from the mayors of the City Police.
Until now, none of the defenses requested the release of the accusedwho have no criminal record. Everything indicates that in the next ten days they will be prosecuted with preventive detention under the legal figure of “aggravated sexual abuse.”
For her part, Natalia, the baker who called the police when she saw what was happening in the car along with other neighbors, reported having received threats and requested custody. “We already know where they work and we are going to return, sons of bitches” and “we are going to kill them all”, were the phrases that the woman claimed to have heard from the attackers when they were detained by the police, for which she requested a perimeter restriction measure regarding relatives of those arrested.
“Four young people had their pants down, they began to insult us and wanted to attack us. They also hit a neighbor who wanted to record what was happening with a cell phone, so that there would be proof of what we had seen. That neighbor was They left bloodied, lying on the floor,” Natalia said, adding: “Everyone abused her, they were like animals.”
Repudiations
Legislators and legislators of the Front of All repudiated the fact. “We express our shock at the gang rape,” they said in a statement, they submitted a request for information to the Buenos Aires government and they asked Horacio Rodríguez Larreta to implement security policies with a gender perspective.
The Women’s Bank agreed to prepare a draft declaration for the plenary session of the Senate to express its rejection in its next session. The senator for San Luis María Eugenia Catalfamo (Frente de Todos), considered that the issue of the sexual attack that shocked society should be included in the Bank’s agenda and stressed that, as a society, “we must take charge of what happens” to “try to change this reality.
Senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti (FdT-Mendoza) expressed, for her part, that “it is urgent to channel the public debate and that the Bank take the initiative in a statement to bring to light a forceful repudiation”. From the opposition, the senator of Together for Change Guadalupe Tagliaferri joined the rejection of the senators and asked for a prompt treatment of a draft declaration from the upper house.
The reaction of various social and political sectors was joined by the authorities of the University of San Martín, where two of the young defendants were attending, the owners of the bowling alley where he had attended and the consortium of a building related to some of the defendants.
A young woman also denounced that when she saw the faces in the media of the accused recognized one of them as her abuser long ago.
The incident occurred on Monday afternoon, at 1300 Serrano Street, in Palermo Soho, when four young people were with the victim in a Volskwagen Gol car parked next to the sidewalk.