Trial for child abuse in Próvolo: the complaint requested 25 years in prison for the nun Kosaka Kumiko

Kumiko Kosaka came to trial accused of various crimes against minors

One of the complaints in the trial of the Próvolo case, which began after allegations of sexual abuse against hard-of-hearing boys that occurred within that institute in the province of Mendoza, requested 25 years in prison for the nun Kumiko Kosaka and 10 years of disqualification from exercising charges in educational shelters where minors attend, the same sentence that the prosecution requested weeks ago.

The request was made by the lawyer Sergio Salinas, from the NGO Xumek, within the framework of the arguments stages of the trial that investigates the violations that came to light in November 2016 in the former institute of Luján de Cuyo, which is carried out in the Judicial Criminal Pole, and that continues with another of the plaintiff lawyers, Oscar Barrera, who will close his presentation this Thursday.

Salinas concluded his plea on Tuesday requesting for the Japanese nun “a sentence of 25 years in prison” and 10 years of disqualification by virtue of “the accumulation of the crimes that we represent in this combo of causes for four victims.”

“This investigation took seven years. This begins in November 2016, when a girl, who was called as the reserved identity witness number 1, filed a complaint with a very precarious sign language”, recalled the lawyer. “After months of research, we began to notice that there was a nun who was bad (by Kosaka) and, over time, we realized that she was not a bad nun in terms of malice, she was a person with indicators of sexual abuse and that She herself did the abuses,” added Salinas.

The Provolo Institute

Unlike the previous debates, this one contains three accumulated causes, so there will be an argument for each one of them. In two of the files, the only defendant is Kosaka, who was released in June 2022 and is under house arrest.

”Evidence was gathered and that flow of evidence led to showing the structure of Próvolo, both active and omissive, that is, who abused as well as who allowed. In that situation, we found that there was a much larger organization,” the lawyer explained, according to information from Télam.

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On Wednesday, the Court called for an intermediate room until today, when the closure of the other plaintiff lawyer will take place and, then, it will be the turn of the nun’s defenders.

Kosaka came to this instance accused, as the author, of the crimes of seriously insulting sexual abuse aggravated in one act and corruption of minors in five acts. She was also considered a necessary participant for the crimes of continued aggravated seriously insulting sexual abuse and three acts of aggravated sexual abuse with carnal access to be committed.

The request for 25 years in prison and 10 years of disqualification from holding positions in educational shelters where minors attend was also requested weeks ago by prosecutor Alejandro Iturbide

The process began in May 2021 and, since then, around 300 hearings have taken place and more than 100 witnesses have testified. Kosaka, born in the Japanese province of Okasaki-Shi and who arrived in Argentina in 1977, is not the only one tried, but there are nine people charged in total, in three simultaneous cases. The others are the nun Asunción Martínez, the legal representative Graciela Pascual, the former directors Gladys Pinacca, Valeska Quintana, Cristina Leguiza and Laura Gaetán, the psychologist Cecilia Raffo and the cook Noemí Paz.

These eight women were investigated by the Justice as necessary and/or secondary participants for omitting abuse of 36 deaf boys and girls at the Antonio Próvolo religious institute.

The episodes date from between 2005 and 2016. In this case, there are already two priests convicted as perpetrators of the sexual attacks, Horacio Corbacho, who received 45 years in prison, and Nicola Corradi, sentenced to another 42, in addition to two other former employees. .

Keep reading:

Sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence: “For the victims, speaking out has a very high cost, which is why we must believe them”Sexual abuse at the Colegio del Salvador: former students filed a criminal complaint with the authorities

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