The defender Gustavo Lucero asked the witness Luis Arango, of the general commissioner hierarchy, current deputy chief of the Neuquén police, with 32 years of seniority, if he knew Moisés and Adolfo Soto, Mario Rinzafri and Jorge Garrido. In 2007, the defendants now made up the leadership of the force. 16 years have passed, they are retired and convicted of abuse of authority. His response was:
-Yes, I know all four of them because they are all my superiors.
Arango was working in the operations department on April 4 when Corporal José Darío Poblete, from the Zapala special group, shot him with a federal pistol at the rear window of the Fiat 147, in whose back seat was the teacher Carlos Fuentealba, and killed him. He was traveling in the direction of the capital Neuquén, since the ATEN union had given up on carrying out the roadblock at the height of Arroyito. The police repressed that protest with gases on the bridge and also at the YPF service station. After a truce, the demonstrators withdrew.
The head of the operation was Rinzafri. There were also the deputy chief of police, Moisés Soto, the security superintendent, Adolfo Soto y Garrido, in charge of the Metropolitan Security department. During the day the boss would arrive, Carlos Zalazar, who had been instructed by Governor Jorge Sobisch.
The five were declared criminally responsible for having allowed a indiscriminate use of force, due to their roles in planning and executing the procedure. The court – made up of Luis Giorgetti, Diego Chavarría Ruiz and Raúl Aufranc – considered that they were giving the orders, and therefore they had the possibility of stopping any violation and guaranteeing the right to protest.
Even with the conviction of Poblete in 2008 and the five former bosses last March, Arango spoke of 2007 as the time when “the death of the professor” Fuentealba occurred. When asked for his opinion on the defendants, he referred to Adolfo Soto, with whom he said he had worked, as “very kind”, “very nice” and about the rest he stated that they were correct. He avoided delving into whether the ruling that declared them responsible damaged the prestige of the institution, because he indicated that if an administrative action was initiated based on the ruling, he would have to intervene.
The deputy chief was one of nine witnesses who came forward today. The court will have to define what sentence it imposes on the five former bosses convicted of authority abuse and Benito Matus, who at that time was the chief officer of the Logistics area and is currently a commissioner in Chos Malal, declared responsible for the crime of aggravated gun abuse.
The bulk of those who testified were relatives and companions of the accused. All of them assured that they were “good people”, “they went to work, they did their job and they did it well”.
The person who provided data on the files of the six defendants was Andrea Noelia Quevedo, from the police personnel department. In the case of Matus, she stated that she had six sanctions and that made it available in February 2002after he was sentenced to a suspended year in prison plus two years of disqualification for harassment, and in April 2007 for the events that occurred in Arroyito.
Rinzafri retired in 2008 and had only one suspension. Moisés Soto and Zalazar were removed on April 10, 2007, by order of Sobisch. The former boss had a sanction in 1979, he entered the cadet school in 1977. The last to retire was Garrido, in 2017. None of this group has a criminal record.
Tomorrow, starting at 8.30, the last witnesses will be heard and then the prosecution, the complaint and the defenses will have a maximum of 20 minutes to request the penalty that corresponds to each one. The court can decide immediately or take up to three days to communicate its decision.