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A court in Chubut acquitted three young people accused of group sexual abuse against a teenager, an event that occurred in 2012 in the city of Puerto Madryn, for “lack of evidence” and for the benefit of the principle of innocence. The case is considered emblematic, due to the difficulties the victim had in denouncing it and the reprisals she later suffered. Now, the acquittal ruling was a bucket of cold water for the organizations that supported the young woman. In the afternoon, groups of women gathered in the squares of the province to repudiate the acquittal of the “sons of power” and marched in protest towards the court building. The lawyers questioned the ruling and the behavior of the three judges throughout the trial and confirmed that they will continue fighting because “the victim wants justice”.
“They acquitted the three defendants for lack of evidence, in an unusual and biased ruling because for 10 years the truth was known and known in Puerto Madryn, with a victim who is a survivor of the mistreatment he received”exposed the plaintiff attorney, Verónica Heredia, in an impromptu press conference that was given in front of the judicial office in Rawson.
The lawyer announced that she is going to “continue making the resources and all the challenges and in all instances”after assuring that “the victim was mistreated when he came to offer his last words, so today’s result does not surprise us.”
The sentence was not officially known due to the secrecy characteristics of the case, imposed by the court itself.made up of judges Ana Karina Breckle, Marcela Alejandra Pérez and María Laura Martini.
Several militants from feminist organizations who waited all morning for the ruling demonstrated in front of the building located at Don Bosco 141, Rawson, which woke up fenced and guarded by a severe judicial device, shouting “That custom of raping is going to end”.
The case
The hearing for the cause of group abuse should have started last year, but successive presentations were postponing its start. The events occurred in September 2012 in Playa Uniónduring a “gathering” of young people in the house of the grandson of former radical governor Atilio Oscar Viglione, prior to the Spring Day celebrations.
However, The complaint was only formalized in 2019 when the victim’s testimony became known through social networks. Six young people were originally identified for the attack at the scene of the abuse (five formally denounced), who acted when the victim was defenseless and unconscious. Only three of the defendants came to trial: Luciano Mallemaci, Exequiel Quintana and Leandro del Villar.who were declared innocent due to the benefit of the doubt and the lack of evidence.
The remaining defendants were disaffected from the process for different reasons.: two because they were minors at the time of the events, and the other because he was able to prove that he was with his girlfriend nearby, but not at the place of abuse.
In the last stretch of the long process, criminal lawyer Verónica Heredia joined the representation of the victim, who today is 26 years old but was a minor when the events occurred.
The repudiations
In the afternoon, different women’s organizations demonstrated their repudiation in different Chubut squares. And the survivor’s lawyers gave a press conference in Trelew.
The plaintiff attorney, Verónica Heredia, assured that “The process was a farce, a lie with pure aggressiveness and violence. The three female judges were sitting there allowing the witnesses to be mistreated, who testified for three hours straight. They had to endure the aggression of the lawyers. Every day we asked for respect for the witnesses and they even told us that the witnesses had no rights”.
“The judges realized that because they are women they do not necessarily have a gender perspective”, he claimed. “We asked the judge to give a message that this cannot be and her message was that if the girls drink and go to a party, they have to take responsibility,” she added.
In this trial, for the first time, the victim of the gang rape that occurred in Playa Unión gave a statement before the court along with ten other witnesses who were at the house of former governor Atilio Viglione the night of the event.
The defenders of the accused “came to investigate the sexual life of the victim and the judges let everything go. That is why the ruling does not surprise us, ”Heredia considered. “Every time we said that we had to have a gender perspective, they practically fell apart. Not only the lawyers but also the judges, ”she ironized.
“The three judges mistreated her and asked him to be quiet. She could hardly speak for the first time in court. They told her “no miss, you can’t say this,” the lawyers told the crowd that was present at the scene waiting to leave. Many women were every day since March 2 at the court door from 8 in the morning until 9 at night.
Heredia found that the victim said in his statement that “I need to live. I’m empty. I have a profession, I have a place to live but I am empty. I need to be free”.
“They doubted the consent of a young woman, a 16-year-old teenager who more than 10 girls said was very drunk, that she could not stand up, that she vomited, that they had to clean her face all the time, because she was very drunk, we do not know. whether for alcohol or if they gave him something else. It was very clear that she could not give consent, but the judges questioned the consent over and over again, ”Heredia concluded and gave the floor to her colleague who shared a letter from the victim’s family.
the family letter
“Once again patriarchal injustice and then they ask why we don’t denounce. We endure institutional violence by judges who allowed humiliation and mistreatment of the witnesses presented by the prosecution and the lawsuit and in turn were complacent with those who surprisingly lost their memory and changed their initial statements and in defense attorneys’ offices. They culminated in an unusual, misogynistic, shameful verdict that takes us back to the last century. How to continue after this? How to trust institutions that laugh in our face? Accomplices and guarantors of the most stale of this society. How to walk calmly when those who violate us have guaranteed impunity? What is the message of this justice that protects the powerful and leaves defenseless those of us whose banner is the struggle of our Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo? Perhaps that they pretend, that we apply self-defense?
“I would defend myself like Higui”a girl shouted upon hearing the closing of the letter. And there was applause in support of the complainant. By 7:00 p.m., they marched through the streets of Trelew and finished the repudiation in the local courts.