The crime of Natalia Melmann, the 15-year-old girl murdered by Buenos Aires police on February 4, 2001 in the seaside resort of Miramar, returns to justice. It is that 22 years later the second trial for the case began, in which Richard Baker, the fourth police officer accused of killing the young woman, the only one who had been acquitted.
The provincial Court of Criminal Cassation annulled the ruling in which he was acquitted “for lack of evidence” in July 2018, and ordered a new debate. For this reason, now the TOC 4 in charge of the judges Néstor Conti and Juan Galarreta and the magistrate Mariana Iriani, seek to determine if Panadero is guilty or not of the crimes of “illegitimate deprivation of liberty aggravated by the use of violence, abuse sexual assault aggravated by carnal access and by the participation of two or more persons and homicide aggravated by the participation of two or more persons and criminis causa”.
The trial has been taking place since May 2 in the Oral Criminal Court 4 of Mar del Plata, and it is estimated that it will last four consecutive days in which between two and five witnesses will testify each day.
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Natalia Melmann: a femicide committed by police officers that caused social commotion
Natalia, 15 years old, disappeared on February 4, 2001 when she was returning home. Four days after her parents reported what had happened to the police, the minor’s body was found in a nursery: it was half buried and everything indicates that it was taken there, since it was a place that had been previously raked .
Witnesses to the incident indicated in their statements that around 7 in the morning of that day, while she was returning home, Gustavo “El Gallo” Fernandez He was the one who approached the teenager and forced her – through blows and pushes – to get into a police van.
Then, as established in the trial held in 2002, Melmann was taken to a house in the extreme south of Miramar: there “She was sexually assaulted” and then, “with the unequivocal purpose of ensuring impunity for sexual assault,” she was strangled.
According to what was reconstructed, those responsible kept the lifeless body of the young woman for four days in the house until, when her disappearance was known, the three police officers already sentenced to life for the crime transferred the body to the Florentino Ameghino nursery, where it was found by the authorities.
After the autopsy and several studies, it was confirmed that the girl had been raped, burned with cigarettes and then strangled with a lace from her own shoe.
The crime provoked the reaction of the community, which organized multiple demonstrations to ask for the clarification of the case. The social impact was such that whoever was president at the time, Fernando de la Ruamet in those days with the parents of the young woman in Miramar.
In the first trial, held in the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 2 of Mar del Plata, the police officers were sentenced to life imprisonment Oscar Echenique, 63, Ricardo Anselmini, 55, and Ricardo Suarez, 60, as co-authors of the crimes of “aggravated illegitimate deprivation of liberty, aggravated sexual abuse and triple qualified homicide by cruelty, treachery and in competition of two or more people.”
Fernández, for his part, confessed that he did not participate in the sexual abuse and homicide, but rather handed the minor over to the police, for which he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his participation in the kidnapping, although that sentence was later reduced to 10 years.
Natalia Melman | 20 years after an atrocious femicide
Crime of Natalia Melmann: why Ricardo Panadero was acquitted and what he is accused of
The former sergeant is accused of the crime of “illegitimate deprivation of liberty aggravated by the use of violence, sexual abuse aggravated by carnal access and by the participation of two or more people and aggravated homicide by the participation of two or more people and criminis causa “.
In the trial in which Echenique, Anselmini and Suárez were sentenced to life imprisonment, Ricardo Panadero was not a party since he had previously been acquitted.
The ruling by which he was acquitted in 2018 was appealed by the Mar del Plata Attorney General’s Office on the grounds that “there was an incorrect assessment of the probative material” and also by the family’s lawyers, considering that “a biased and arbitrary use of the evidence”, especially a DNA test carried out on a pubic hair found on the body of the minor, which indicated that “Compatibility with the analysis corresponding to Panadero was detected”.
The prosecutor of that trial, Ana María Caro, argued in her defense that Panadero should be tried since “there was an incorrect appreciation of the probative material” and that “relevant elements were dispensed with.”
For its part, Panadero’s private defense, headed by Lautaro Resúa, maintained that the former sergeant “did not participate in the events that had Natalia Melmann as a victim.”
Natalia Melmann’s parents: “Baker was on the list of suspects from the beginning”
Laura Calampuca and Gustavo Melmann, Natalia’s parents, gave their testimony this Tuesday, May 2, at the beginning of the second trial for the case.
“Justice is taking 22 years,” Calampuca said about the situation of Ricardo Panadero, and considered that “if he had been a civilian, he would already be in prison.”
The father of the minor said that the crime was “a femicide in the hands of the State” and that “everyone who murdered Nati did it with the desire to have fun.” Melmann also recalled that when his daughter’s body was found “There was a lot of fear, pressure and slander”, and that different neighbors provided information “but then they did not want to testify” before the intervening prosecutor’s office.
“The same policemen who had murdered her came to look for my children to go look for Natalia,” he said before the judges, according to what was recorded. telam. “These guys were still on the loose, threatening everyone, and still running the police station”added.
His daughter, he said, was murdered “for sadistic fun,” and he remarked that the defendants “were on duty and serving at the police station” in the area, “as Panadero did.”
Along these lines, he stated that the fourth defendant “was on the list” of suspects from the beginning based on data provided by witnesses, and considered that “he should have been convicted” in the first trial along with the other former police officers.
AG / ED
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