Claudio Martínez, the former Secretary of Security of San Miguel del Monte who was going to stand trial along with 23 police officers for the massacre, died today following being attacked by one of his Rottweilers at the home where he was serving his arrest.
Martínez was a retired inspector commissioner and spent his house arrest with an electronic bracelet. According to the spokespersons, Martínez had several Rottweiler breed dogs at home, one of which attacked him and seriously injured his arm, for which he was admitted to the High Complexity Hospital of Cañuelas, where he died today as a result of the injuries sustained.
Meanwhile, the case for the so-called “Monte Massacre” is currently in the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 4 of La Plata, which has already started the hearings prior to the debate so that the parties can provide evidence.
In March of last year, the judge of Guarantees of La Plata Silvia Pelossi ordered that 24 suspects be tried, among them, the former secretary Martínez, who was accused of covering up the fact and breaching his duties as a public official.
The cause investigates the death of Camila López (13), Danilo Sansone (13), Carlos Aníbal Suárez (22) and Gonzalo Domínguez (14); and the serious injuries suffered by Rocío Quagliariello (13), the only survivor of the massacre that occurred on the morning of May 20, 2019.
The main defendants are the former police officers Rubén García, Leonardo Ecilape, Manuel Monreal and Mariano Ibáñez, who are being prosecuted with preventive detention as co-authors of “aggravated homicide for abuse of function as a member of the police forces qualified for the use of firearms, and violation of the duties of a public official”.
According to the accusation, these officers were aboard the two patrol cars that chased the young people and from where the shots were fired that caused the Fiat 147 car driven by Suárez to crash into a trailer parked on the route collector. 3, in San Miguel del Monte.
According to the prosecution’s accusation, there was no “founded reason” for these officers to adopt such a temperament, the defendants had the “represented and indifferent purpose” of producing the death of the victims and carried out an “illegitimate aggression”.
While in the case of the remaining defendants who do not face charges for the homicides, they will be put on trial without the intervention of popular juries.
They are the then police officers Florencia Stankevicius and Mario Mistretta, who will be tried “for aggravated concealment, breach and violation of the duties of a public official”; and Julieta Aguilera Rearte and Nelson Rodríguez for “violation of the duties of a public official.”
Deputy Commissioner Franco Micucci (former head of the Monte Police Station), José Durán, Nadia Genaro, Melina Bianco, José Domínguez, Cristian Righero, Juan Manuel Gutiérrez, Marcelo Idarreta and Maia Valiente.
For the prosecution, Righero, Bianco, Gutiérrez and Domínguez “had immediate knowledge of the homicidal event” and their “condition, knowledge and functional location would have allowed them to reveal the crime of the other agents”, but they did not do so.
On the other hand, Evelin Van Monleghey, Camila Galarza, Marisol Rizzo and Sergio Servia go to trial for “aggravated cover-up, breach and violation of the duties of a public official.”
Lieutenant Héctor Ángel for “aggravated cover-up, abuse of authority and violation of the duties of a public official”; and Raúl Mauregui only for “violation of the duties of a public official.”
In her 85-page ruling, the judge concluded that it was “an unfortunate event in which the commission of serious crimes allegedly committed by police personnel in the exercise of their functions is being investigated,” and highlighted “the commitment assumed by the witnesses who allowed, with their statements, to lift the veil of what, until that moment, seemed to be an apparent traffic accident”.
