2023-07-04 03:12:51
The popular jury meeting in the 11th Crime Chamber of Córdoba sentenced police non-commissioned officer Mariano Andrés Martínez to four years in prison this Monday for very serious aggravated injuries to the detriment of Damián Alejandro Pérez in an episode that occurred in 2014 for which the victim was severe injuries that left him a paraplegic and indirectly led to his death in 2022.
On the other hand, it was declared that a weapon was planted on the person shot, that he was a victim of institutional violence and that compensation for more than 30 million pesos must be paid to the family.
The sentence handed down by the popular jury and the technical judges -Horacio Carranza (president), Susana Frascaroli and Gabriela Rojas Moresi- is not yet final, so Martínez will remain free with the possibility of overturning the decision. The same will happen with the civil demand that the Province can appeal it.
The fact
At 6:15 p.m. on July 12, 2014, at the corner of Emilio Achával and Venus, in the Bella Vista neighborhood, a group of policemen stopped a white Fiat Uno in which three young people were traveling following a chase.
The young Augusto Aliendro and the brothers Alexis Pérez and Damián Pérez were lowered and arms were searched.
According to the first performances, one of the uniformed men noticed that Damián Pérez had a lump in his clothes and asked him to show what he had. The young man fled and, in pursuit, managed to enter a house where a birthday was being celebrated.
Zone. The area where young Pérez was shot. (Archive)
Minutes later, other police vehicles joined the search, one of which included agent Mariano Martínez together with commissioner Rodolfo Ayala. Both saw Pérez run at the intersection of Figueroa Alcorta (la Cañada) and Venus.
Pérez launched into La Cañada, pursued by Martínez.
The first indictment indicates that Pérez – with a police record and a conviction – turned around and pointed a gun at Martínez. The petty officer fired two shots at him, one of which hit him in the back. With a spinal cord injury, he was left without mobility in both legs.
previous trial
This was the second trial that was held once morest Martínez, who in 2019 was acquitted of the original accusation, of very serious injuries. That verdict, married by the complaint, motivated the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) to order in 2021 a new trial to reconsider the evidence, always for the accusation of injuries.
But in the interim, in 2022, Pérez died from infections contracted in the bedsores caused by his paraplegic condition, confined to a wheelchair.
Fiscal. Chamber prosecutor Marcelo Sicardi requested a six-year prison sentence for the same figure that issued the sentence, “very serious injuries, with eventual intent, aggravated by the use of a firearm and functional abuse.” (Archive)
For this reason, when the second trial began last month in the same 11th Chamber, Chamber prosecutor Marcelo Sicardi asked that the popular jury be summoned because he understood that Martínez might be convicted of qualified homicide. In addition, he pointed out that according to the records, the weapon found in front of the victim appeared to have been planted by police officers.
For all this, the start of the second trial exposed the accused police officer to a possible life sentence.
verdict
After intense hearings on Monday followingnoon, the verdict of the popular jury was reached. Unanimously, Martínez was sentenced to four years in prison for very serious injuries, with eventual intent, aggravated by the use of a firearm and functional abuse, plus special disqualification for the same period of time that the sentence lasts.
Regarding the controversy over the possibility that a weapon may have been planted, the opinion that Pérez was unarmed when he was shot by Martínez and that the weapon found near him was planted was imposed by majority. The two technical members who cast votes, Frascaroli and Rojas Moresi, voted in that sense with five popular juries. Three town judges disagreed with that idea.
For this reason, it is maintained in the sentence that Pérez was “victim of acts of institutional violence” for which the Province must pay compensation for moral damages to his relatives for 30 million pesos, plus 300 thousand pesos for loss of chance, all With interests.
Complainant. On behalf of the relatives of the victim of institutional violence, the lawyer Nicolás Turturro achieved recognition of the civil lawsuit once morest the Province for more than 30 million pesos. (Archive)
In the latter, the judgment partially recognized the civil lawsuit filed by the plaintiff by the parents of the victims, Nicolás Turturro, who had requested 87 million pesos.
Development of the second trial
At the beginning of this trial, the possibility of a conviction for qualified homicide had been raised, but during the development of the debate, important evidence was aired that helped to elucidate the circumstances of the event and the relationship of the subsequent death in relation to the shot that wounded Pérez. .
In particular, some expert reports and the opinion of experts, such as the official forensic doctor Ricardo Cacciaguerra, helped the popular jury to lean towards the legal qualification of very serious injuries.
This is also how the prosecutor Sicardi saw it, who in his plea requested a sentence for “very serious injuries aggravated by the use of a firearm and abuse of his functions”, with a sentence of six years in prison.
The prosecutor considered that the police officer acted with eventual intent, understanding that “in the circumstances of the case, Martínez seriously believed that firing a shot with his weapon was not the appropriate measure to apprehend Damián Pérez and he still fired.”
It added that Pérez “was not being persecuted for having committed a serious crime, nor did he take any action that put the property or life of the police officer or third parties at risk.”
In his plea, the accuser stated that the victim was not armed and added that the weapon seized from the scene had been “planted by the police” to falsely argue self-defense.
In that round of conclusions, the defender Hugo Luna had requested the acquittal of his client and the plaintiff by the parents of the victim, Nicolás Turturro, life imprisonment for qualified homicide, plus a compensatory amount in charge of the civil defendant, the provincial State, for 87 million pesos.
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