Argentine Justice acquits three accused of gang rape in 2012

Buenos Aires, 21 Mar The Justice of the Argentine province of Chubut (south) acquitted the three accused of a group rape in 2012, according to Efe sources from the Prosecutor's Office on Monday, who announced their intention to challenge the judgment once the grounds of the sentence were made public. According to the complaint, the events occurred in 2012, when the victim was 16 years old, during a party at a house in the Chubutense town of Playa Unión, located on the Argentine Atlantic coast. When this event came to light in mid-2019, local media published that the young people accused belonged to influential families in Chubut, the province where the alleged rape was reported. In this regard, the Prosecutor's Office expressed its disagreement with the acquittal verdict and remains waiting to obtain the full judgment “to analyze the judges' reasoning and bring the extraordinary appeal”. “The full sentence will be announced next Monday and from that moment on the prosecutors have ten days for the extraordinary challenge before the High Court of Justice,” sources from the Prosecutor's Office told Efe. Prosecutor Maria Bottini stressed in a statement her disagreement with the way the evidence was interpreted by the court, “without a gender perspective” and without respecting current regulations for cases of crimes against sexual integrity. This case was the subject of strong controversy in June 2020, when the then prosecutor in charge of the case, Fernando Rivarola, downgraded the crime to “simple sexual abuse” and considered that it was a “willful act of sexual relief” on the part of the accused. With this qualification, none of the defendants would have gone to prison, since that offence provided for sentences of less than three years 'imprisonment. In any event, the three accused acquitted went to trial on charges of simple sexual abuse, in competition with “gravely outrageous sexual abuse” aggravated by the involvement of more than two persons and by the “serious harm” caused to the mental health of the victim. ACQUITTAL OF “HIGUI” This news comes just four days after the acquittal of Eva “Higui” de Jesús, a woman accused of killing one of the ten men who tried to rape her because she was gay in 2016. This was ordered by the Oral Criminal Court 7 of San Martín (Buenos Aires province), 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 femicide every 29 hours in 2021, according to data from social organizations. CHIEF jacb/rgm/lll