They set a date for the trial for the death of young Mapuche Rafael Nahuel

Almost six years after his death, the young Mapuche Raphael Nahuel will have justice. The Oral Federal Tribunal of General Roca announced this Wednesday that finally the oral trial for the crime, which occurred on November 25, 2017 in Villa Mascardi during an expulsion operation carried out by the Albatros Group, from the Prefecturewill begin August 14.

The oral debate will have in the box of the defendants five officers of this special command, then under the orders of the Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich. They are accused of murdering the 21-year-old during a mountain chase. For the Human Rights Secretariat, established in March 2021 as a plaintiff in the case, the Albatross dozens of lead ammunition were fired while members of the community they sought to evict had already left the land in custody.

The prefects will be judged charged by the prosecution as co-authors of “homicide by excess of self-defence”although the human rights secretary will seek to prove at trial that it was aggravated homicide, on the assumption that there was no self-defence.

The hypothesis of the federal prosecutor of Bariloche Sylvia Smallwho investigated the case is that the prefect Sergio Guillermo Cavia fired the bullet that caused Nahuel’s death in the midst of a confrontation between the force and members of the Lafken Winkul Mapu Mapuche community, who – in his view – have recovered properties belonging to the administration of national parks in Villa Mascardi.

They are also accused Francisco Javier Pintos, Juan Ramón Obregón, Carlos Valentín Sosa and Sergio Damián García as necessary participants. All are defended by lawyers Marcelo Hugo Rochetti (former chief of staff of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security when Cristian Ritondo was in charge), Anabella Ethel Schmidt and Alejandra Elvira Bussetti.

According to tests carried out by the Bariloche Atomic Center incorporated into the case file, these five – out of a group of eight agents – could be detected as those involved in the hands of agents looking for traces of gunpowder. Together they fired at least 114 times.

Rafael Nahuel died of complications from a bullet received by the Prefecture in the left buttock. The bullet passed through the body and lodged in his right armpit, causing his death. According to the spokesperson for the Mapuche community, Soraya Maiconoto this medium, while he was dying, Nahuel said to his friends: “Do not hand me over to the whites.

Despite the fact that Nahuel died with his back to the shooters and that no weapon was found among his belongings or trace of gunpowder in his hands, the judicial investigation carried out by the prosecutor leads him to believe that it was a confrontation and not a repressive operation. It’s because Lautaro González there Fausto JonesHualalonko’s brother faundo, recently detained, minimal remains of barium, lead and antimony in their hands, the elements that testify to the gunshots.

According to the opinion of the federal judge of Bariloche Gustavo Zapata, who ordered the case during the investigation, the agents had “need to defend” since they were attacked with rubber bands, stones and even “spears”.

Despite Patricia Bullrich repeating countless times that the occupants of the property used firearms, No trace of gunshots was found, nor the pods used, much less the weapons themselves, at the crime scene or during the roundups..

The prefects concerned declared that they had suffered a “virulent” attack and that although they started by trying to repel attacks with paintballs, they then increased the reaction and started to use lethal weapons, including some of very high power like the MP5 submachine gun, which carries 30-round magazines and shoots in bursts.

“In my view, the accused could consider that his life and that of his companions were in danger“wrote Judge Zapata in his decision. The human rights secretary questions this vision and considers that If the bullet that killed Rafael Nahuel entered his back, it implies a flight situation and not an assault at the moment of the fatal blow. That’s why he’ll likely go to trial in August to ask that they be convicted of aggravated homicide with no mitigating circumstances.

“The murder of Rafael Nahuel is a paradigmatic case of institutional violence. This is the direct consequence of these very dangerous “shoot a bullet” speeches that end people’s lives. Going out to hunt children who shoot lead bullets is what a rule of law should not do. They killed Rafael and could have killed two others, who ended up with injuries to their arms,” said Horacio Pietragalla Corti, the nation’s secretary for human rights, in a statement released after learning the date of the trial.

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