Federal justice prosecuted 54 prison guards for torture at Ezeiza prison

Federal Court No. 2 of Lomas de Zamora prosecuted 54 officers of the Federal Prison Service (SPF) For imposition and omission to avoid tortureamong other offences. “It’s an unprecedented failure”indicated the Penitentiary Prosecutor of the Nation (PPN)

In the case where the PPN has the role of plaintiff, a sequence of concatenated events that occurred between June 9 and June 13, 2019 in Module III is studied, pavilion B of the Federal Penitentiary Complex No. 1 of Ezeiza.

it all started with a collective demand from prisoners in this accommodation space, generated by the decision of the prison agency which unexpectedly and arbitrarily modified the rvisiting scheme.

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Following this measure of force, which included the burning mattress and its placement at the entrance gate of the pavilion, the module authorities called for the formation of a “extraordinary research body” composed of the Control and Archives Division, the Special Group for Conflict Resolution (GERI) and the Task Force Against Losses (GOAS).

According to the resolution, when they entered the pavilion, officers from these various sections led the inmates to retire to the rear of the building, where they they stacked them on top of each other through the modality of torture known in the jargon as human stack.

“Once reduced to this position, and without the detainees offering the slightest resistance, the officers they beat them with sticks and kicks, pepper spray was thrown in their eyes there shot with shotguns at close range directly against the bodies, causing various injuries to several of the prisoners,” the PPN detailed.

According to the agency, “Faced with the violent advance of the groups involved in the operation, some of them locked themselves in a cell in fear. There, a group of penitentiaries started throwing gas at them, causing breathing difficulties”.

After these events, all inmates in the pavilion were searched and locked in their cells, it was detailed.

The next day, “the authorities of the module decide to submit the detainees to a regime of sectorization, consisting of the constant confinement which was only interrupted by recesses of different lengths to which access was allowed divided into groups,” they clarified.

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According to the complaint, They received no water or food for almost four days, and during this period, the ward was not cleaned, leaving the detainees without artificial light; covered sinks, sinks and toilets, showers without shower heads and cell windows without polycarbonate despite the winter period.

“This regime of prolonged isolation and inhuman conditions only ended on June 13,” said the PPN, due to the intervention of the Interinstitutional System of Control and Monitoring of the Judicial Control of Penitentiary Units (created in the orbit of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation). , who was carrying out an inspection at the Complex that day.

The tax Cecile Incardona and tax assistant Claude Pandolfi they carried out the investigation which succeeded in identifying and charging the officials denounced.

“In addition to the evidence on the number of officers prosecuted, the importance of the judgment also lies in the express characterization of acts of torture not only from physical attacks, but also from the regime of isolation and the unsanitary conditions of detention imposed on victims, in what constitutes a legal framework unfortunately little explored by national jurisprudence in cases that have arisen in a democracy”, celebrated the PPN.

“This is a significant step forward in the fight against impunity for torture, which this body has set up for several years as one of its main lines of work,” concluded the Attorney General.

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