Seven police officers began to be tried this Monday in the 5th Crime Chamber of Córdoba for a violent home assault that ended with a thief shot dead in the back of the head. It happened in December 2020 in the Urca neighborhood of Córdoba.
One of the uniformed men is tried for alleged excess in his actions, while the other six are in the dock accused of having “planted” a fake weapon at the crime scene to try to divert things.
The old revolver appeared in the hand of the dead assailant.
In turn, two young people accused of having been part of the group of thieves and a security guard accused of having been the alleged deliverer are being tried.
The cause is complex and has interests for others found among the defendants.
Completing the court scene, as plaintiffs are the parents of Isaías Daniel Luna. The young man killed at the hands of Sergeant Ariel Esteban Adavid.
Robbery, shooting and death
The event occurred in the early morning of December 18, 2020 in the family home on Julio Borda street at 1200 in the Urca neighborhood, northwest of the city of Córdoba.
According to the accusation in charge of the investigating prosecutor Juan Pablo Klinger, the security guard of that block José Manuel Giménez would have provided key information to the three assailants: Luna, Cristian Agustín Araya and Martín Alberto Muñoz.
When at 5 o’clock the owner of the house was preparing to go out to work, the thieves surprised him.
The neighbor was beaten and his hands and feet tied. He was lying face down inside the house. The scene was noticed on the ground floor by the man’s wife and son, with which they notified the Police.
The radio frequency warned a patrol in the area and Sergeant Adavid entered through the open gate and then into the house and found the man tied up.
In that place, the kitchen, the meeting with Luna took place, who ended up dead from a shot to the head, from behind.
The instruction also analyzes the tasks of alteration of the scene and cover-up maneuvers that other police officers would have carried out, including the commissioner Fernando José Navarro and the main non-commissioned officer Sebastián Raúl del Valle Colella.
Among these movements, it is pointed out that the only cell phone that had a 360° video camera was placed in a place that might not see the movements of the uniformed personnel around the house.
In addition, one of the policemen went in another patrol car to look for the revolver in his house in the San José neighborhood that ended up “planted” in Luna’s right hand, with a finger on the trigger. This plan collided with the detail that the finalized thief was left-handed.
In turn, at the first hearing it emerged that the police took a long time to call an ambulance.
It is presumed that through the radio they did not get one available, so another patrol car was sent to the Argüello CPC where they did not find any ambulance so they later went to Paseo Rivera, also without result.
Presentation of the case
In the presentation of the case before the people’s jury, the prosecutor of the Chamber, Marcelo Fenoll, said that it “still” remains to be seen in the debate under what circumstances Adavid shot Luna and he summed it up in a sentence regarding what should be figured out: “(We have to) see what really happened, because we don’t know yet.”
In return, Fenoll charged the other police officers. The accuser maintained: “We do not know in what context Adamid acted.” And he criticized his colleagues because “they did the easiest, ‘planting’ a weapon.”
The prosecutor announced that he will seek to prove other crimes once morest the police in the debate, namely: abuse of authority, embezzlement of public funds (due to the use of mobile phones), abandonment of a person, omission of the duties of a public official, suppression of evidence and, ultimately, ideological falsehood.
The defenders complained regarding this claim and complained that the prosecutor does not follow the principles of innocence and objectivity.
Two defenders wanted to make it clear that “this is not a trigger-happy case.” He resonated with a phrase from one of them: “We are not judging the crime of Blas Correas, but a person who entered a house to commit crimes, putting an entire family at stake.”
complex hearing
In the first hearing of the trial, following reading the accusation, the defendants were identified. When it came time to investigate one of the young men who entered the house in the Urca neighborhood, the process began with Muñoz, who agreed to an abbreviated trial agreement.
A controversy then arose between the prosecutor Fenoll and some defenders because Muñoz admitted all the facts of his accusation but began to involve the police, such as saying that he saw Adavid enter the house with a black bag, with the presumed purpose of planting a weapon.
This generated a harsh discussion that also pitted the defenders of the police officers once morest the legal adviser María Belén Barbano, who assists Muñoz and Araya.
While the criminal officers who assist the uniformed officers -Jorge Sánchez del Bianco, Hugo Luna, Simón Palacios and Eduardo Medina Allende- criticized that the defendant ended up acting as a witness once morest the police officers, the official defender defended the intention of having whoever was fully acknowledging the accusation of having entered to steal.
Prosecutor Fenoll also proposed that those accused of the robbery be tried first and then the police, with the “thieves” as witnesses already tried.
The court – made up of María Susana Beatriz Gercizich de Scapelatto, Alfredo Villegas and Guillermo Lucero Offredi – made a difficult decision: the abbreviated process continues and this Tuesday Muñoz will testify as a witness, under oath.
In this way, the problem that the defendant is not obliged to tell the truth seems to be settled. Now, he must do it with regard to the police, while his prosecution fully recognizes it.
