“We all know that for a long, long time, I don’t know if not more than a year that the teachers came blocking the route, bothering the citizens of the province with their bellicose attitudes, they were not Discalced Carmelites“, said Carlos Zalazarwho was chief of the Neuquén Police in 2007, and who is accused of abuse of authority for his participation in the operation in which the teacher Carlos Fuentealba was assassinated.
For the first time in 16 years, the eight police officers spoke publicly about what happened on April 4. They did it before the court, in what is known as “last words”, which is the moment that the defendants have to address the judges before they go on to deliberate. They are not required to tell the truth, unlike witnesses who take an oath.
They sat in the place commonly assigned to the popular jury, located four in a row, and respecting hierarchies. Their speeches were focused on differentiating the operation designed to prevent the picket on Route 22 – which involved the deployment of the Metropolitan, Firefighters, Uespo, special groups from Zapala, Cutral Co and Junín – from the shot that killed the teacher, carried out by the Corporal José Darío Poblete, and carried out in this context. They stressed that they helped to identify the shooter, whom they consider solely responsible.
Zalazar referred to the defendants as “seven of my subordinates” and highlighted his “great special training.” He confirmed that on April 3 the governor, Jorge SobischHe met with the police leadership. The order was that “prevent the roadblock” that the ATEN union would carry out the next day at the height of the Arroyito bridge to demand a salary recomposition. He entrusted the procedure to the then deputy chief, Moses Sotoand he lowered the directive to who was the Security superintendent, Adolfo Soto.
He said that they called the special groups for the “professionalism” that “avoids overflows.” Fairly town He belonged to these teams, in his case to the Zapala GEOP. He affirmed that on April 4 he arrived at his office early and there he found out that the head of the operation would be Mario Rinzafrisecurity director.
He stated that the road controls that were set up that day “They were not intimidating, but it was to prevent weapons from passing through«. During the trial it was shown that what some of the protesters threw were stones and ceramic balls.
He assured that at mid-morning he decided to go to Arroyito. Already in the place they told him that there had been a traffic accident, but later the version changed: he found out that a teacher was injured and the perpetrator of the injuries was a policeman. He indicated that he made the institution “available” to the prosecutor Sandra González Taboada “for the clarification of the homicide.”
Moisés Soto was the shortest of all. He specified that he was at the meeting on April 3 at the Government House, along with Zalazar and Adolfo Soto. There they received the instructions of the ex-governor: not to allow the cut on the Arroyito bridge to take place, but rather that the protest take place in El Carancho, where Vialidad had built an alternative road.
«I have been sentenced for 16 years, me and my family. Subjected to derision, to escrache, to the designation of murderer, to the accessory after a murder. Everything is based on elements used in the Fuentealba I case, “said Adolfo Soto and looked at the docetes that were present in the room. He told them “you applauded” the sentence against Poblete. The president of the court, Luis Giorgetti, asked him to address the judges.
He criticized the plaintiff lawyer, Ricardo Mendaña, who was not present at the hearing yesterday. “We considered him an integral part of the police family. He was an integral part of the teaching staff at the police college, not the cadets. I was a student of Dr. Mendaña, Rinzafri, most of the bosses who are here, “he added. He maintained that the police on April 4 acted with “non-lethal” weapons.
Rinzafri pointed out that the shots were directed “at those who were throwing stones” and that the murder of the teacher “was an unwanted act.” Like other defendants, he mentioned that his children were mistreated as a result of the accusation against them.
“It bothers me a lot when they want to establish that there was a manhunt here”, highlighted Jorge Garrido, who was the head of the Metropolitan Security department. He said that if that had happened there would have been “traffic accidents.”
The only person responsible for the consequences of pressing the tail of the trigger, of producing the shot, is the operator”.
Jorge Garrido is one of the five bosses accused of abuse of authority in the lawsuit.
“I defended myself from aggression”
Aquiles González and Julio Lincoleo are charged with the aggravated cover-up of Poblete. The first marked that he was the one who launched “the candle”, the first gas, after the dialogue that the leadership of ATEN had with Rinzafri. “I see the attitude of the demonstration to cause damage”recounted.
He emphasized that the Fiat 147, in which Fuentealba was in the back, “rammed” him along with another policeman, who according to the investigation was Cristian Vázquez Salinas. Shout “they delay the vehicle” and there Poblete fired his federal pistol at the rear window, less than seven meters away. He observed a riot and there he found out that there was an injury. He assumed that the car had “hit a pedestrian.”
This police from the province of Neuquén has all the necessary elements to purify itself and that no one intervenes in that self-purification.”
Aquiles González was the one who asked that the Fiat 147 be stopped.
Lincoleo was the direct boss of Poblete. He explained that “with the intention of regaining strength and calling the cell phone” he stopped in the truck of the special group from Cutral Co. He saw him afterward. “I did not speak to him, nor did it occur to me to think why he was there”. The troops assured, especially in the first trial, that it is not common for a police officer to enter a vehicle that does not belong to him.
Matus used his last words to speak to the chief prosecutor Maximiliano Breide Obeid who accused him of abusing weapons in a contest with minor injuries, aggravated by his status as a public official. He affirmed that in 2007 he was in logistics because his father had cancer, and not because he had been made available since he had a 2001 conviction for harassment.
He said that on April 3, he was told to go to Arroyito at 6 in the morning to bring coffee, mate and invoices to 50 troops. He indicated that this function “is not belittlement.” Once there, they gave him a 12/70 shotgun to take care of the pumper. “I defended myself from the aggression,” he said about the shots, and said that they were never on people or vehicles.
Giorgetti announced that they will take two days to issue the verdict, that is, until Friday the 17th.
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