The DFS statement lasted 70 minutes before the OS-9 of Carabineros de Concepción. It was September 15, 2021, that is, nine months after the disappearance of Tomás Bravo, that he arrived at the police station located in the Lomas Verdes complex.
His figure had achieved notoriety after the loss of the minor from Caripilún, after the media branded him as a “key witness.” Despite not giving names, he at the time claimed to have seen an unknown person in clothing that would later be linked to Jorge Escobar Escobar, great-uncle of the child accused in the case.
Today, his name is back in the spotlight. According to the testimony that he presented to the police – to which the BioBioChile Research Unit– The man met “in secret” with Tomás’s maternal grandmother, Elisa Martínez, at her request. The latter, however, is flatly ruled out by the woman.
“secretly”
“The person that I saw moving in that sector, denoted that he was from the place. There was no supported bicycle, vehicle or similar on the highway or Route P-40 to indicate that someone was waiting for this person or that they had left a cell phone there,” the witness recounted.
According to his account, “this person moved in an agile way, jogging, and his movement was from south to north, going up the hill from the place called UPA, to the right. That is to say, he was turning towards a curve to the right (…) and he did it accompanied by several dogs that followed him, you could tell they were his because they accompanied him in his trot ”, he added.
Once he had declared what he had seen that day, he immediately referred to the appointment with Elisa Martínez.
“I also want to make it clear that a woman from Radio Capital FM named MTF from Lebu, contacted me to speak secretly with the grandmother of the child Tomás “he asserted.
Are you there?
According to his version of the facts, the appointment was scheduled on March 9, 2021 via WhatsApp and took place a day later. The latter was recorded in the instantaneous conversations with the woman who acted as an intermediary between the two and who the witness voluntarily made available to the prosecution:
—Intermediate: Hellooooo, are you there? Tomás’s grandmother needs you to call her. She just wrote to me.
—Witness: I called her. The number goes off.
—Intermediary: That is the number. Maybe he’s talking on the phone. I dont know. Please try again later or leave a message.
The conversation continued on the day of the meeting:
—Intermediary: Are you there? (…) Elisa needs to get together with you. She was calling me.
According to DFS, “this private meeting took place on the Boca Lebu Sur beach” at about 2:00 p.m. on March 10.
The woman who made the contact between the two, consulted by the BioBioChile Investigation Unit, acknowledged having served as a link. And although she said she did not remember the dynamics of how it happened, she did remember that “there was a contact.”
“I remember that clearly,” he confirmed.
“I remember having been a mediator, yes, having shared the phone numbers,” she said. You don’t know what they talked about? “Totally,” she remarked.
“He asked what we had seen”
Precisely the content of the exchange and who contacted whom today is a matter of controversy: Tomás’s grandmother, requested by this means, said that it was the witness who wanted to speak to herwhile the WhatsApp conversation and the man’s version denote the opposite.
According to DFS, the boy’s grandmother arrived in the mining sector of the city with a person in a burgundy Nissan Terrano double-cab van. “Once at the scene, the lady introduced us to her husband, who was driving the vehicle. In my opinion, he was very nervous, ”she said.
In his speech, the witness The woman’s interest in knowing what she knew slipped through and she commented that she advocated for Tomás’s great-uncleat that time the only defendant in the case currently led by the Bío Bío regional prosecutor, Marcela Cartagena.
“She asked what we had seen and defended her brother by pointing out that he was not who we had seen,” he revealed.
Thus, he added that the woman “said theories”, such as that “Tomás had been robbed from the road and taken away”.
—When you went to meet Tomás’s grandmother, who conducted the interview and what was this communication like? “She was the one asking questions. Her husband didn’t speak anything, he just watched and looked nervous. They looked distraught, I guess it was what they were going through, the way I see it,” she said.
“Some time later she tried to contact us again, but me and my friend refused,” he said.
“No precedent”
What the witness pointed out, however, was categorically ruled out by Elisa Martínez, who -despite declining to provide an official version- acknowledged that the meeting existed. Likewise, she affirmed that she in no way defended her brother during the appointment. In this way, he ruled out that he had pressured the witness in any way.
Who did offer an answer was the Public Criminal Defender. From the body in charge of the representation of great-uncle Jorge Escobar, they pointed out that -to date- there is no investigative history that shows that his represented by himself, or through third parties, has tried to obstruct or hide any background for this investigation.
“Very to the contrary, it has collaborated rationally since the beginning of the cause, even before it was formalized,” they detailed.
Despite the insistent requirements, DFS systematically refused to answer the queries of this medium. He argued that it is an ongoing investigation.
key expertise
This Monday the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to extend the term of the investigation was learned, whose debate will take place in a hearing set for January 31 in the Guarantee Court of Cañete.
According to information compiled by this medium, the prosecuting agency and the parties to the case are awaiting an expert opinion qualified as “key” ordered from Spain that could offer insight into what happened to little Tomás.
The decision comes after in December 2022, the prosecutor’s office informed the child’s parents of the result of a first study in the Iberian country, the results of which are kept under investigative secrecy.
In the event that this new extension is granted, It would mean one last chance for the Cartagena prosecutor to insist on the accusation against the only defendant, Jorge Escobar, or point to another hypothesis or close the investigation without results.
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