This case was the subject of strong controversy in June 2020, when the then prosecutor in charge of the case, Fernando Rivarola, lowered the classification of the crime to “simple sexual abuse” and considered that it was a “willful act of sexual relief” by the accused.
The Justice of the Argentine province of Chubut (south) acquitted the three accused of a gang rape in 2012, According to sources from the Prosecutor’s Office.
The agency announced its intention to challenge the ruling once the grounds for the sentence are made public.
According to the complaint, the events occurred in 2012, when the victim was 16 years old, during a party in a house in the Chubut town of Playa Unión, located on the Argentine Atlantic coast.
When this event came to light in mid-2019, the local media published that the young accused belonged to influential families from Chubut, the province where the alleged rape was reported.
In this sense, the Prosecutor’s Office expressed its disagreement with the acquittal verdict and remains waiting to obtain the full sentence. “to analyze the reasoning of the judges and file the extraordinary appeal.”
The prosecutor Mary Bottini underlined in a statement his disagreement with the way in which the evidence was interpreted by the court, “without gender perspective” and without respecting the regulations in force for cases of crimes once morest sexual integrity.
With that qualification, none of the defendants would have gone to jail, since this crime provides for less than three years in prison.
In any case, the three acquitted defendants went to trial under the accusation of simple sexual abuse, in competition with “Severely outrageous sexual abuse”.
This, aggravated by the participation of more than two people and by the serious damage caused to the mental health of the victim.
Argentine Justice and the acquittal of “Higui”
This news comes just four days following the acquittal of Eva “Higui” de Jesus, a woman accused of killing one of ten men who tried to rape her for being gay in 2016.
This was ordered by the Oral Criminal Court 7 of San Martín (province of Buenos Aires), ignoring the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, which requested ten years in prison for “Higui” for “simple homicide”.
This event became another symbol of sexist violence in Argentina, a country that suffered a femicide every 29 hours in 2021, according to data from social organizations.