Concealment: order to investigate Alperovich for the crime of Paulina Lebbos

A few days after the 15th anniversary of Paulina Lebbos’ crime, the university student murdered in Tucumán, lThe Provincial Supreme Court of Justice today upheld the conviction of five men for covering up the incident, including four former officials of the former governor and current Senator José Alperovich, who in February 2019 were sentenced to between 3 and 6 years in prison.

Judicial sources reported that the decision, which bears the signatures of ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of Tucumán (CSJT) Claudia Sbdar; Stela Maris Arce and Wendy Kassar, have closed the sentences of former security secretary Eduardo Di Lella, former police chief Hugo Sánchez, former deputy police chief Nicolás Barrera, of the former deputy head of the northern region of Rubén Brito and former policeman Waldino Rodríguez. The same judicial resolution orders the investigation of possible perpetrators of the crime of Paulina, the son of a former secretary of Alperovich, the victim’s partner and a brother of Roberto Luis Gómez, acquitted in 2019 after the second trial conducted in connection with the case.

The highest court also ordered that then governor Alperovich and the current Under-Secretary for Security José Ardiles be investigated. for accepting the promotion of ex-commissioner Enrique García in 2010, when he was already accused of irregularities in the Lebbos case. In the first trial in this case in 2014, García was sentenced to 5 years in prison for covering up Paulina’s crime, when it was determined that he had falsified the transcripts of a witness’s testimony and of the discovery of the body.

“It is a conviction which was essential for the accessories to go to prison and which only confirms what we have been denouncing for so long,” he told Telam. Alberto Lebbos, father of the university student murdered on February 26, 2006 and whose body was found on March 11 of the same year.

“The decision of the CSJT took two years due to various actions that delayed the confirmation of the conviction, including challenges from judges,” Lebbos added.

The court ruling upheld the 6-year prison sentences imposed on Di Lella and Sánchez; 5 years and 6 months in Barrera; from 5 years to Brito; and 3 three years in prison for Rodríguez. Di Lella, Sánchez, Barrera and Brito were officials of the triple governor of Alperovich province, currently a senator on leave after being denounced for sexual abuse of a loved one.

The sentences confirmed today were handed down in the oral and public trial that began in 2018 and ended on February 25, 2019, in which Paulina’s murder and subsequent cover-up were broadcast. During this debate, Roberto Luis Gómez was acquitted, who had been accused of being “a secondary participant in the illegal deprivation of liberty followed by the death” of the student.

The CSJT’s decision also ordered that they be investigated as possible perpetrators of the crime of young Sergio Kaleñuk, son of former Alperovich secretary Alberto Kaleñuk; Paulina’s partner, César Soto; and Esteban Gómez, brother of the acquitted Gómez.

In the meantime, next Friday, on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the murder of the young woman, deadline for the justice of Tucumán to decide whether or not to accuse Kaleñuk, Soto and Estéban Gómez, because after this date, the cause of the homicide will prescribe. “We run the risk that Paulina’s crime will go unpunished because the Penal Code establishes that once 15 years have elapsed, the causes prescribe,” said the student’s father, who considered “all the atrocities committed during these years as terrible mainly by (former prosecutor). Carlos Albaca ”.

Albaca was in charge of the Lebbos case investigation for seven years until he was separated and is currently charged with concealment, in addition to other crimes related to the same case.

“There has been great interference from political, judicial and legislative power to prevent the truth from being reached and to protect the murderers and accomplices in Paulina’s crime. It doesn’t affect my daughter’s cause but rather hundreds of causes in Tucumán, ”said Lebbos.

Finally, he declared that “the only way is to continue to fight to end this situation of impunity“.

Paulina’s crime occurred on February 26, 2006, when the young woman left a bowling alley located in the neighborhood known as the old Abasto, in the capital of Tucumán, where she had gone dancing with her friend Virginia Mercado. As determined by the inquiries, at around 6:30 a.m. that day the two rode to a burgundy shed: Virginie first went down to her home in La Rioja at 400 and Paulina continued the trip to her house. her boyfriend, although she never arrived. After 13 days of searching, the young woman was found murdered on the side of provincial road 341, near Tapia, about 30 kilometers from the capital Tucumán.

Telam

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