Global Courant 2023-05-17 17:47:01
A popular jury decides whether or not they are guilty of the deaths of four boys during a shooting chase in May 2019.
A popular jury defines this Wednesday whether four Buenos Aires police officers are guilty or not in the case known as the “San Miguel del Monte Massacre”, in which four boys died after a police chase with shots and a subsequent crash in May 2019.
At 10:40 a.m., the reading of the series of instructions began by the judge in charge of the debate, Carolina Crispiani.
“We are going to do two intermediate rooms because the information that I have to convey to you is long,” the judge told the twelve main jurors. After their participation, their deliberation will come.
The officers Leonardo Daniel Ecilape, Manuel Monreal and Mariano Alejandro Ibáñez, and the former police captain of the province of Buenos Aires, Rubén Alberto García, have been undergoing a jury trial since May 8.
In said debate, they were accused of the crime 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” of Danilo Sansone (13), Camila López (13), Gonzalo Domínguez (14) and Aníbal Suárez (22), and the attempt by Rocío Quagliariello (17), then 13 years old.
Nine of the twelve jurors must find the defendants guilty to reach a guilty verdict.
Instead, if there are eight or less votes in favor of guilty, the police officers will be considered “not guilty.”
Regarding the requirements for the defendants to receive the maximum penalty, it can only happen if the jury’s verdict is unanimous.
The allegations
During the day of this Tuesday, the closing arguments of the parties took place, in which the trial prosecutor Mariano Sibuet asked the popular jury to consider Ecilapé, Monreal, Ibañez and García “guilty”, stating that “they showed contempt for the lives of the victims” and that “each of them made an essential contribution” to bring about the fatal outcome.
Along the same lines, the plaintiff lawyers representing the families of the victims agreed that what happened on the night of May 20, 2019 was a “brutal homicide” and an “unjustified killing.”
On the contrary, the lawyers sponsoring the uniformed men maintained the innocence of their defendants since they blamed Aníbal, the driver of the vehicle in which the victims were traveling, as being responsible for the events, while they considered that the agents acted “in compliance with their duty” when trying to identify the deceased before the persecution.
After the allegations, the police officers had the opportunity to say their final words, in which they apologized to the relatives of Danilo, Camila, Aníbal and Gonzalo, and gave them their “deepest condolences”, although they maintained that they are not murderers.
Yesterday morning, the police officers García and Ecilapé had requested to expand their investigative statements, where the first of them said that when he found out the ages of the victims he should have “shot himself in the head”, since he is “a in love with human rights” and not a murderer.
The fact
The so-called “Monte Massacre” occurred at dawn on May 20, 2019, when members of the local police station chased a Fiat 147 along the Route 3 collector in which four adolescents were traveling, three 13-year-olds and one of 14, together with a young man of 22.
The five boys were listening to music when the officers began to chase them for no reason and, according to the records of the municipality’s security cameras, to shoot them, since a policeman was observed in the place of the patrol companion, with half a body. outside and in a shooting attitude, while one of the adolescents was wounded by a bullet in one of his legs.
As a result, the car in which the young people were traveling collided with the trailer of a truck that was stopped on the road and four of the five occupants died on the spot.
