Catamarca: the trial of the priest accused of …

The trial by aggravated sexual abuseor against the priest Juan de Dios Gutierrez, which was to start this morning at Catamarca, was postponed until Tuesday 20, after defense counsel Gustavo Martinez Azar resolved not to connect virtually for the start of the chat. Shortly before, the defender – who released a video on Tuesday in which, with his client, demanded a face-to-face hearing – had requested the adjournment of the hearing because, he assured, the building where she had to take place had done. does not guarantee the sanitary conditions required as a patient at risk.

The priest is in charge of “sexual abuse with carnal access aggravated by the condition of being a representative of a religious sect”, accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl 16 years old at 2015. The hearing was awaited pending the applicant, her relatives and human rights organizations, as it would be the first debate on ecclesiastical abuses to take place in the province, and the statements of the young woman, her sister and her mother were expected.

“The victim was ready to testify”confirmed the plaintiff’s lawyer, Silvia Barrientos.

“My daughter is desperate, she is unbalanced. It’s one more attack and this time it’s the lawyer who has been making a big deal out of this morning so that the trial doesn’t take place. He lied, (said) that he was going to log in and did not log in, “Alejandra Carrizo, the young woman’s mother, protested at the court door.” My daughter is very bad, very bad, “he added, and recalled that the trial was scheduled to end on Tuesday, when” we were going to have the sentence. “Instead, he said recalled, after the unexpected abandonment of the defense lawyer, that day “the trial will just start.”

The start of the oral debate has already been postponed for six years. Since filing the complaint, Parish Priest Gutiérrez has implemented a delay strategy based on appeals and appeals, which were rejected in each case. The first defense lawyer, Guillermo Narvaez, tried to stop, but, he said, himself obispo Luis Urbanc interceded to ask him to change his mind. “He asked me in the name of God to continue to defend and to exhaust all the means to avoid the trial, because I had the chance to obtain justice with the priest Juan de Dios Gutiérrez before him. cunning and malicious attack on the Church and whom I represent“, he declared at the time, before finally declining the representation, that until this morning he was in charge of Martinez Azar.

Chronicle of an abandonment

The hearing was to begin shortly after 9 a.m. in the building of the criminal chamber of the 3rd appointment, but shortly after the start, the lawyer Martínez Azar, who the day before demanded the presence for the debate, presented a proposal to request that it not be carried out because there were “suspected cases of covid19”.

The court dismissed the request and the lawyer retired to his office, from where he had to connect virtually for the audience to start. After two hours without him doing so, the court declared the “official abandonment” of the defender and decided to appoint an official defender of the priest. For this reason, he also postponed the start of the hearing until next Tuesday, April 20.