The Bariloche judges Romina Martini, Juan Pablo Laurence and Marcelo Álvarez Melinger rThis Wednesday they rejected the request of the plaintiff lawyer Juan Mandagaran, to revoke the resolution of the Criminal Execution Judge Sandra Ragusawhich authorized the former chief of the Río Negro Police and former Secretary of Security, Víctor Cufré, to serve the remainder of his sentence with the home modality.
Mandagaran had requested to annul the house arrest that Ragusa granted to Cufré in mid-December and to return to the place of detention in the Middle Valley.
The lawyer, who represents Karina Riquelme, the widow of Sergio Cárdenas, who died from a police bullet in the repression of June 17, 2010 in Bariloche, He alleged that the 70-year-old requirement “does not operate automatically.” Furthermore, he maintained that Cufré’s detention conditions were optimal.
He pointed out that the judge made a wrong interpretation of the articles of the Criminal Execution Law, to apply the benefit to the convicted person. Prosecutor Inti Isla did not support the filing of the complaint. Cufré’s private defender asked to reject the proposal.
The hearing was held this Wednesday by zoom and Cufré was connected from the house where he is serving his sentence.
They endorsed the judge’s decision
After listening to the arguments of the complaint, the defense and the prosecution, the judges took a few minutes to deliberate and then reported that they were rejecting the request.
Martini explained that the resolution of the Bariloche Criminal Execution judge was motivated. She maintained that Ragusa was not limited to only assessing Cufré’s age (70 years) to allow him to serve his sentence with house arrest.
He said that Ragusa had analyzed the conditions of the home where he was housed, the reports of the interdisciplinary team of the provincial penitentiary system “that they declared appropriate” the fulfillment of the sentence with the home modality.
He remembered that Cufré was convicted of a culpable act, although he admitted that the event had a high social impact. Also, he indicated that the magistrate took into account the health problems that the convicted person has.
“The judge has gone beyond considering Cufré’s age,” Martini observed. That’s why, concluded that “Ragusa’s decision is founded” to grant the sentence to be served in a home with an electronic device, for monitoring. That’s why, confirmed the resolution, with the support of Laurence and Álvarez Melinger.
Why was he convicted?
Cufré was tried and sentenced at the beginning of December 2018 by the judges of the former First Criminal Chamber of Bariloche. to four years in prison and eight years of disqualification for failure to fulfill the duties of a public official and manslaughter and negligent injuries (minor and serious).”
He was held responsible for his negligent conduct and failure to comply with police regulationsl in force during the violent events that occurred on June 17, 2010 in the neighborhoods of Alto de Bariloche and that caused the deaths by police bullets of Nicolás Carrasco, 16 years old, and Cárdenas, who was 29, and 13 wounded.
CUfre was then the Secretary of Security and Justice of the government of the radical Miguel Saiz.. He was not the only official convicted.
The trial court also sentenced the then Rio Negro Police, Commissioner Jorge Villanova, and the former head of the Third Regional Unit of Bariloche, Commissioner Argentino Hermosa, to four years in prison and eight years of disqualification.
The defendants’ defense appealed the conviction in all instances, whichthat became firm after the rejection of the complaint resources presented before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, in a ruling that was issued on February 18, 2022.
Also, the Supreme Court dismissed the complaints of the defense of the police officers Víctor Darío Pil, Marcos Rubén Epuñan and Víctor Hugo Sobarzo who were sentenced to four years in prison and eight years of disqualification as co-authors of the murder in a fight in Cárdenas, aggravated by the use of a firearm.
The three were convicted because it was not possible to establish with certainty who was the author of the shot that “rebounded” killed Cárdena.s, in the 169 Homes neighborhood of Bariloche.
June 17, 2010, a violent day
June 17, 2010 was a tragic day which had begun early in the morning with the murder of Diego Bonefoi, 15 years old, in a police chase. The shooter was Corporal Sergio Colombil, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The teenager’s crime sparked furious protests by family, friends and acquaintances of Bonefoi against the police officers at police station 28, where Colombil worked. and that it had jurisdiction in some neighborhoods of Alto.
The convicted police chiefs were reproached for the fact that instead of being in Bariloche, they went to El Bolsón to direct the actions of the police and for hours the police repressed the demonstrations and riots without any type of control.
Four days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Cufré and the other convicts were arrested. That is to say, they have already served almost two of the four years they were sentenced to.