Trial for the crime of Fernando Báez Sosa: why does the prosecution ask for life imprisonment for the rugby players and the defense for acquittal?

At the conclusion of the arguments, the eight defendants made use of the final words (Photo/Ezequiel Acuña)

After two intense days, the arguments of the trial for the crime of Fernando Báez Sosa ended this Thursday. As a block, the officials of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Juan Manuel Dávila and Gustavo García, and the representatives of the victim, headed by Fernando Burlando and Fabián Améndola, maintained the original classification of the case “doubly aggravated homicide in an ideal contest with minor injuries.” ” and requested a life sentence for the eight rugby players accused of being “co-authors” of the crime.

For its part, the defense, led by Hugo Tomei, requested the acquittal “for a technical and procedural issue.” “What is accused is proven and something other than what was alleged was accused. The accusation speaks of five subjects involved in the beating. The allegations, on the other hand, of the eight ”, started the lawyer on Thursday in the closing day.

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On what points did both parties base their foundations? From the plan to kill treacherously, going through the defenseless state of the victim and the “everyone did everything” and the request for life imprisonment; up to “the fact is not proven” and the request for acquittal. Below are the key points of both allegations.

Both the prosecutors and the lawyers for the Báez Sosa couple maintain that in the early morning of January 18, 2020, the defendants agreed to kill Fernando. In his presentation, prosecutor García explained that the attack lasted 45 seconds and explained that, prior to that, the attackers had seven minutes to devise the plan.

Hugo Tomei, the lawyer for the eight accused asked for their acquittal (Ezequiel Acuña)

“They had been expelled from the bowling alley and were on the same sidewalk and a few meters from Fernando. (In that period of time) there was a strategy or planning on how to start the attack,” the prosecutor said. Online, Burlando detailed chronologically the previous to that “criminal plan” and how long it took to complete it.

“The defendants were taken out of Le Brique and out onto the sidewalk at 4:32:30. Between 4:36:15 and 4:36:45 a fight broke out in the next room: Beerland. It was intercepted by infantry personnel who expelled Luciano Pertossi from there. The rest of the defendants, however, remained on the sidewalk of the dance venue and, at 4:37, they crossed to stalk Fernando. At 4:38:27, Lucas Pertossi quietly walked to the corner to see if the area was cleared (of police). The previous agreement began in the village of Le Brique at 4:37. At 4.42.15 infantry personnel withdrew from the place and, at 4.44.30, Ayrton Viollaz gave the order: “It is now”, he told his friends that they automatically approached Fernando by the sword and in a pack . At 4:45:15 they carried out the homicide: it lasted 45 seconds,” said the family’s lawyer.

For his part, prosecutor Dávila added: “Premeditation does not mean that they thought: ‘Today I go out dancing and I kill a person.’ He means that moments before the commission of the act, people agree to kill. That can be seen in all the videos: that seven minutes before they leave the bowling alley, cross the street and go to the place where Fernando is. It was observed that, as soon as the last police officer leaves, they start”.

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In his allegations this Thursday, Tomei made it clear why he believes that this plan did not exist, and targeted the accusers. “In the absence of evidence, they say that seven minutes after they left the bowling alley (my defendants) they agreed to the plan: false, implausible or inconsistent. There was never a plan to kill. These kids had no dimension of what had happened ”, he maintained and ruled out that his defendants had the intention of assassinating Báez Sosa.

In his allegations, Fernando Burlando marked the defendants one by one in the videos of the fight

That’s what the defender asked himself in his plea, while showing a screenshot of the video filmed by Lucas Pertossi, where the start of the aggression is seen. To rule out the treachery, to which the accusers previously referred (“The attackers attacked without risk -because the police had withdrawn- from different sides and directly at him”), Tomei referred to the confrontation between Máximo Thomsen and Fernando Báez Sosa inside the track of Le Brique.

“When there is a previous fight, the homicide case stops being treacherous because there is a context in which the defenseless state would not be. (The person) would be attentive, could take ‘arms’ in the matter in the sense of procuring her safety. If we take Báez Sosa’s blow to Thomsen as data, he (Fernando) already knows that he can end up in another problem, ”he explained.

Regarding Thomsen’s gesture when he is removed from the track by a patovica, which Burlando marked as “a clear announcement of: ‘You are dead’”; Hugo Tomei, meanwhile, assured: “There is an impeccable narrative construction. He throws his hand up because he is short of breath ”.

“Point to the place where Fernando was. It wasn’t random… It’s a clear announcement of: ‘You’re dead,’ and that’s how it was,” Burlando said.

In the preparatory criminal investigation, the prosecutor Verónica Zamboni raised the existence of roles.

“The accusation that falls on the defendants maintains that they made the decision to kill Báez Sosa and that, to execute the plan, they divided their functions. Thus, five of them (Máximo Thomsen, Ciro Pertossi, Enzo Comelli, Matías Benicelli and Blas Cinalli) went looking for Fernando, caught him off guard and turned his back’ and ‘began to hit him on different parts of his body (…) While all this was happening, the other three (Ayrton Viollaz, Lucas and Luciano Pertossi) formed ‘a kind of cordon’ to prevent Fernando’s friends from being able to help him and, furthermore, they beat them several times”, argued Zamboni.

Although they maintained the classification of the cause, the prosecutors and the lawyers of the victim’s parents ruled out that there were roles and functions in the ferocious attack. “Everyone did everything. They all agreed to kill Fernando. They all hit him. They all took turns,” Garcia said, accusing the eight as co-perpetrators.

But for Tomei, “if everyone did everything, there is inconsistency.” For this reason -a technicality-, he first asked for acquittal and, then, raised three different scenarios of possible qualifications: homicide in a fight, preterintentional homicide and simple homicide with eventual intent. The latter contemplates a sentence of 8 to 25 years; the other two, less than six.

The verdict of the Oral Criminal Court No. 1 of Dolores will be known on February 6 at 1:00 p.m.

Keep reading:

Everything about the trial for the crime of Fernando Báez Sosa

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