Lola Chomnalez case: justice overturned the acquittal and sentenced the accused for having concealed the crime

After 8 months of the ‘car attendant’ acquittal Angel Eduardo Moreira Martineza Uruguayan appeals court has decided to overturn this decision and sentence the man detained for having concealed the crime of Lola Chomnalezthe Argentinian teenager murdered in December 2014 on the beach of Suitcase Bar.

Thus the judgment of the Court of Appeal of the 4th. Shift determined that the defendant, alias ‘He cachila‘, who on June 20 had been acquitted for lack of evidence and released immediately, must return to prison. The man had already been detained for three and a half years.

Despite the fact that “El Cachila” returned to prison months after the acquittal for violating an approach restriction requested by a former partner, judges Luis Vicinguerra, Ángel Shaban and Gabriela Cobelli unanimously decided to revoke the acquittal pronounced by judge Juan Letrado Giménez Vera, of the 1st. Rocha, and condemn him to eight years in prison “as an author responsible for an offense of concealment”.

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Some time ago, on June 28, Rocha’s prosecutor, Jéssica Pereyra, had appealed the decision and when presenting the appeal, she reiterated her request for a ten-year prison sentence.

Currently, 39-year-old Leonardo David Sena, who according to the acquittal of Judge Giménez Vera, in his statement, maintained that he did not know “Cachila” is still in custody for the crime of the teenager. At that time, the magistrate explained, a few days after Sena’s capture: “Thanks to the genetic material, we were able to locate a person, who is the one who deposited his genetic material, worth redundancy, at the scene of the event. That is, in the briefcase that was inside the backpack Lola was carrying the day she died and in her Argentine national ID.

However, Giménez clarified that he cannot “say that the case is closed” since the accused did not acknowledge “having killed Lola Chomnalez”. “It is scientifically located at the crime scene. He admits to having made contact with Lola’s belongings and that he steals money from the backpack, he recognizes which is impossible not to recognize because scientific evidence places him there, but he denies any responsibility in the crime,” said Juan Willman, one of the lawyers for the victim’s parents.

You may be interested: Lola Chomnalez case: what “El Cachila” said when he regained his freedom after being acquitted by Uruguayan justice

Eight years after the femicide of Lola Chomnalez, the lawyer expressed his peace of mind to advance the cause: “This is the first anniversary in which we have felt the peace of mind that the person who left his DNA in Lola’s belongings has finally been found.”

Meanwhile, judicial sources assured that the accused, who has a criminal record for two other events, was arrested in Chuy, on the Uruguay-Brazil border, and that different witnesses indicated that he was frequently seen in the region of Castillos and Rocha.

In December 2014, the 15-year-old girl went to Uruguay and stayed with her godmother, Claudia Fernández, who was with her husband, Hernán Tuzinkevcih, and her son.

However, the next day, the young woman disappeared after going for a walk on the beach and two days later her body was found four kilometers from the house, in an area of ​​dunes.

Through the autopsy, it was determined that Lola died of suffocation and had several cuts made with a knife in different parts of her body. For the prosecution, the teenager tried to flee her murderers, was beaten, injured with a knife and hit in the head to finally die of asphyxiation when, because of her probable calls for help, they pressed her face against sand.

“El Cachila” was arrested at the start of the investigation, but was released because the comparison of his DNA with the genetic material found in the victim’s objects was negative, but in 2019 the Uruguayan justice again charged and arrested him as an accomplice after finding that “he was present before, during and after the murder” of the teenager.

For his part, in his statement before the Court, Sena declared himself innocent and maintained that on the day of the crime he had cut himself with a glass bottle while working in a supermarket in Valizas, which he had then gone to the beach to drink. It was in these circumstances that he found the victim’s backpack thrown away and when he handled it, he stained it with the blood of this wound.

With information from Telam

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