Alcides Quintrel tried to get rid of the accusation for the crime of Jorge Gatica and he targeted his partner Jorge Sosa, whom he pointed out as the only person responsible for the torture followed by death at the 45th Cipolletti Police Station. Despite his statement, his procedural situation did not improve and he will continue in pretrial detention.
He was moved in some passages of the hearing and assured that he was not the author of the beatings of the young man who had been arrested for stealing a couple of sausages in a butcher shop, on January 9.
Llast week he had asked to testify and the intentions were already known from that moment: detach from the responsibility of the crime, although the accusers continue to believe that he participated and believe “half” what he recounted at the hearing.
Mainly because he was the one who was with the detainee along with Sosa during his stay in the unit and because Hardly a single agent has been able to hit Gatica so many times in such a short time: The autopsy determined that he suffered more than 50 blows and 7 ribs were fractured, one of those blows caused hepatic shock that led to his death.
In addition, through his defender Federico Diorio, he tried to moderate pretrial detention with a domiciliary. The judge of Guarantees Sonia Martin not only rejected it but also held Quintrel responsible for allowing the beating.
“I would have acted the same if I wasn’t a police officer”
In his statement, the sergeant said that he saw how Sosa savagely beat Gatica who was on the ground and with the handcuffs. He related that he told him to stop, but that the first corporal did not. «He would have acted the same if he wasn’t a policeman. If it had been a robbery, I would have told you to stop and if you did not do it, you would continue long, “the magistrate reproached him. She said that with this conduct, she is at least responsible for the crime of non-compliance with the duties of a public official.
What did take into consideration the judge was to separate Quintrel and Sosa that until today they were in the same cell in a Cipolletti police station. “We do not know what position Sosa can take before this statement,” said lawyer Diorio to request that they be at least in different cells.
Quintrel tried to speak at the arraignment hearing, but did not do so on the recommendation of his lawyer, then the official defender Marcelo Caravallo. Days later he changed lawyers, the same as two other defendants in this case: Andrea del Carmen Henríquez and Walter Carrizo.
He said that when they took Gatica to the first medical control, around 10 p.m. on January 9, Sosa hit him on the way to the patrol car. Inside, Gatica headbutted him and the sergeant pinned him down, he did not hit him again. The medical report found injuries and abrasions, but The worst was when they returned to the 45th Police Station.
Quintrel and Sosa were looking after Gatica. Quintrel said that he was in another room and began to hear strange noises. “as if it were a fight, a fight”. “Sosa was hitting him on the ground, kicking, slapping, pineapples, everything,” she recounted.
Then, when asked by a complainant, he revealed that Gatica was on the ground, handcuffed and unable to defend himself. «I told him that the court, but he continued. Then Herníquez came -he was a street manager that day- and He asked him to stop and there he did stop ».
It was at that moment that Henríquez changed custody with Carrizo and Sosa went to the guard, but before finishing him off with a kick to the ribs. Later, Henriquez, Quintrel and Moraga They left the tour after a call to 911 for a traffic accident.
send an ambulance
Around 12, they received a call from Carrizo to send an urgent ambulance. When they returned to the Gatica police unit, he was faint. they did CPR while Quintrel was driving at high speed to the hospital. Attempts to revive him were useless, he died before receiving medical attention.
Due to the development of the hearing, it does not appear, in principle, that Quintrel has improved its procedural situation, at least in this instance. For the accusers, although Sosa is the main person responsible, they believe that he was not the only one who hit the 36-year-old.
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