Federal justice closed the case of Santiago Maldonado: no enforced disappearance – 29/11/2018

In a rough ruling of nearly 300 pages, Federal Judge Gustavo Lleral filed the case for the death of Santiago Maldonado. The magistrate put an end to the habeas corpus, originally intended for the determination of the disappearance of the young man, and the cause of enforced disappearance, the main badumption of the investigation.

In this context, he declared the "total and definitive dismissal" of Emmanuel Echazú, Alferez of the National Gendarmerie, who was suspected of having participated in what happened on the site occupied by a Mapuche community in Cushamen in August 2017.

Judge Lleral said in his ruling that there was no doubt about the circumstances of Maldonado's death, placing him on August 1, 2017 in the Chubut River, Cushamen, by to drown and in solitude. The magistrate made a hard allusion to the sectors that tried to pervert the investigation and took advantage of the versions evoking a case of state violence. He also concluded that the new evidence requested would not provide any substantial data, but would unnecessarily prolong the processing of an already clarified case.

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The decision comes 24 hours after the knowledge of the results of the tests carried out in the INTI laboratories on a set of identity cards similar to those of Maldonado. Expertise shows that documents are not affected by water for 90 days, which explains why the young man was in good condition.

"In summary, having badyzed the solid evidence gathered and established with certainty the reality of the facts, it is appropriate to completely reject the criminal hypothesis relating to the alleged enforced disappearance of Santiago Andrés Maldonado," said Lleral.

"And the commission of another criminally relevant human action, strictly related to the facts, is not the subject of this case.In short, the criminal involvement of any person was not found in the unfortunate events that have been investigated, "he said, ruling out any third-party interference.

"By the complaint that gave rise to the present criminal case, in which a constant, exhaustive and uninterrupted and exhaustive judicial investigation was conducted, aimed at establishing the circumstances of the disappearance of Santiago Andrés Maldonado, as well as the criminal responsibilities" he says. With this, Judge Lleral reaffirms that the justice has acted transparently and again refutes the need for a new commission requested by the Maldonado family.

"There has been no relevant criminal involvement of any person, it can be concluded that all of the evidence presented by the parties, which is awaiting dispatch, is irrelevant and is not relevant. therefore also inadmissible, "he says.

"It would be overtly useless and sterile to organize the holding of procedures that are a priori incapable of moving the architecture of the evidence built with the categorical and plentiful elements already collected." In addition, this would extend unconstitutionally and unjustifiably. Conventional the duration of a certain judicial process and irreversibly defined by the vehemence of the accredited facts, "he adds.

The magistrate leaves ample room to reflect on the facts that took place in the Maldonado case and on the badumptions that indicated without foundation an act of enforced disappearance. "So, revealed truth silenced chills of confusion and disbeliefmotivated by small actors and interested never to find it, to delay or to definitively deny their meeting, "he says.

"That is why, although it insists on presenting the facts in an absurd way, it aims at avoiding or delaying the realization of the proof measures, precisely the unveiling of these facts, although infinitely open measures, insistently, be pointless and dilatory, and even though it is publicly stated that the facts are not what they happened, but as some people prefer, the truth is that the truth about the disappearance and the death of the victim of this cause (and all the misleading manipulations they derive from it), it is only ", basically.

Towards the end of the document, he details the actual circumstances and how Maldonado died. "However, the truth was simple, without fascination." Santiago was where they last saw him, there alone, without anyone noticing, he sank into that well where a few minutes ago Lucas Ariel Naiman Pilquiman had avoided falling when he proposed to cross the river after encouraging Santiago to do so.His spot drowned, without anyone being able to warn him, without anyone can help him, neither the gendarmes who persecuted them in the middle of the operation, nor the members of the community that Santiago went to support in their claims. "And continues in his description.

"The desperation, the adrenaline and the excitement naturally caused by the flight, the depth of the well, the thick branches and the roots crossed at the bottom, the cold and icy water humidified his clothes and his shoes until he reached his body, this amount of incidents contributed to his fall and his inability to float, to not being able to go out for a breath of fresh air. convergence of these simple and natural realities, inevitable in this precise and fateful moment of loneliness, their essential vital functions have been paralyzed, "he said.

"There, his body remained trapped, hanging in the dense underwater branches, which kept him inert and hidden for the necessary time, after his natural internal decomposition, in order to overcome the pressure and temperature of the body. cold water, waiting for the changes of the climate, and alone, while it was running, without anyone noticing it at that moment, was emerging in the same place, in the background of the river where it was was hidden and submerged there, a branch of the same willow where he was trapped provided support, he kept it until it was seen and finally, she was removed. "he continues.

"The truth is that when the simplicity of things is obvious, they fly over the bugs of spurious speculation.The human being can not stop his mind and his fantasy when simplicity reaches him." Refusing to see the reality, it's materializing the absurd and living in the lie.In the best of cases, it's a chimera, "he concludes. Finally, he orders the "total and definitive dismissal of Emmanuel Echazú" and "does not give way to the evidence requested by the parties and which have been duly taken into account, the arguments set out in the corresponding recitals."

In addition, Fernando Soto, director of regulation and standardization of the police and security forces of the Ministry of National Security, told Clarín that "it has been shown that Maldonado was drowned , that there had been no involvement in his death, unfortunately the staff of the gendarmerie, as well as the attempt of some groups to intervene in justice and encourage a false enforced disappearance ".