2023-07-08 08:00:00
He Jonathan Peña’s crime is now one more case, forgotten in the dark corridors of the courts, hidden in the recesses of the judicial archives. It is one more life that was lost in the confines of Río Negro and one more family, without finding peace or reparation. Jonathan’s is now a “closed case” after eleven years, a labyrinth with no way out for the Peña-Pichimil family.
“They closed the case and with this we are finished. They never gave us an answer, we didn’t know why they killed the baby. They never told us the truth,” Perín Peña, father of the boy murdered in El Cuy in 2012, told Río Negro, upon hearing the latest ruling from the National Supreme Court of Justice.
The boy responsible for the homicide and the adolescent cover-up were first convicted and then acquitted, which was ratified by the Superior Court of Justice of Río Negro in 2018. After that final sentence, only one letter remained.: that of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation that was played on September 5, 2019 by the Attorney General of Río Negro, Fabricio Brogna, who filed a complaint for the extraordinary federal appeal. Two months ago, on April 25, the Court rejected it and the acquittal of the sentence for the authors was final.
Ten lines have the judicial ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation that closes the case. Photo: Alejandro Carnevale
“There is no one in prison,” repeats Vilma, the mother, almost speechless. Still distraught, as if it had been yesterday that she lost her son. “The concealers who were there and were participants in my son’s crime continue to work in El Cuy, like the doctor,” said the woman and put the “power” framework behind the case back on the table.
Perín and Vilma raise their voices again after so many years of fighting and seeking justice for Jonathan. For them, justice does not exist, the case remained in total impunity and the worst thing is that it was never clarified why they killed him. Today Jonathan would be 28 years old, he would have already finished high school. He would probably be working, perhaps he would have started a family, but he couldn’t decide one way or the other because his life was taken from him.
There were minutes, hours and days without consolation for this family, which no longer has any more resources or avenues to do justice. First, they saw the culprits – minors at the time of the events – sentenced, but later, they witnessed the acquittal. Later, they suffered inaction in the case against the doctor and the town police officer, alleged accomplices and direct relatives of the adolescents. And now the doubt is allowed as to whether the real material authors were targeted.
“Maybe at that time my son saw something strange then, they had to clean it up. Something happened”, predicted Perín, who if he had the means would no longer be in the region. He has a small business in El Cuy, very close to those involved in the crime.
“Small town, big hell,” the man continues to maintain. He ratified that in this case, those who were found guilty are the children of the police chief and the town doctor.also a direct relative of former teacher Javier Bernel, convicted of sexual abuse of 13 students at a school in Roca in 2020.
The fighting continues
“You have to load the backpack and carry it until the day you die”, Perín sentenced when processing the sad news. They were willing to go further, but this cause was a parade of lawyers and representatives that in some cases did not last even a day. “They threw us into abandonment, especially the State,” he reflected.
“They closed our case, they never gave us an answer, we never found out why they killed my baby”
Perín Peña, father of Jonathan Peña, victim of the El Cuy crime in 2012
Hoy They continue to fight for their other three children: Armando, 27, Manuel, 23, and Soraya, 19, who suffer the consequences of their brother’s heavy story on a daily basis. In the study, at work. Everything weighs. For Perín, health is a problem since he has all kinds of conditions.
The family, devastated and still helpless today, continues to ask for help with all their might. “Someday I would like to know the answer of justice”, closed Perín, in the incessant search for the truth.
An “aberrant” case: no chance of reversing the ruling
in 2017a young man was sentenced to 6 years in prison for the murder of Jonathan and a girl to 10 months in prison suspended for “aggravated concealment”. In 2018, although they did not question the guilty plea, the STJ judges understood that the application of the sentence was not necessary and acquitted them.
One of the arguments used by the attorney general, Fabricio Brogna, to take the case to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and request that the acquittal be annulledn; was that the rights of minors are not more important than those of the victims. Since, of the entire range of possible solutions, the Superior Court of Río Negro opted at the time for the one that guarantees the rights of minors, “completely denying the rights of the victim’s family.”
Brogna had admitted that although minors cannot be judged with the same standard as adults and that the law always contemplates a diminished guilt“we must not associate minority with impunity”.
Nonetheless, the prosecutor’s attempts to reverse that ruling before the country’s highest court of justice were terminated in April, four years later, when they refused.
“This is an aberrational case (…) there were a lot of possibilities for the justice service to be ensured for the victim as well. before the dismissal”, the prosecutor had explained.
11 years and six months led the cause between the beginning and the end; with the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
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