On the fifth anniversary of the discovery of the lifeless body of santiago maldonadohis brother Sergio again denounced that Gendarmerie acted “endorsed by the Government itself” of Cambiemos during the disappearance of the young man and remarked that the cause that investigates what happened “has been paralyzed since March 2020”.
In addition, he highlighted the contribution of a new witness who testified last February in front of the Attorney of Esquel, Federico Baquioniby assuring that, as a result of this testimony, those involved will have to “give many explanations”.
Santiago Maldonado disappeared in the framework of a repression by the Argentine National Gendarmerie (GNA) against a protest by the Mapuche community of Pu Lof Cushamen in Chubut, for the claim of ancestral lands of the Benetton Group located between Route 40 and the Chubut River.
Santiago’s body was found lifeless in the Chubut River, 400 meters upriver from where he had been last seen, in an area that, as the Maldonado family reported several times, had already been raked three times by helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs, without finding anything.
The Minister of Security of the then government of Cambiemos, Patricia Bullrichhad gone out to support the force he was in charge of: “There is no indication that it was the Gendarmerie. And the force does not report any detainees.”
That government had also denied the presence of Santiago in the area on the day of the operation that culminated in his disappearance, in a fact that had to be proven by the family itself, which provided photos and a video in which they recognized the presence of the young man on day before the crackdown.
“It is the first case of a forced disappearance in which a federal force participates and is endorsed by the Government itself. Nobody dared so much in what has to do with the disappeared in democracy,” he told Télam Sergio Maldonado, brother of Santiago.
At once, in the 78 days from August 1date on which Maldonado’s disappearance occurred, and on October 17, several hypotheses circulated in the press that claimed that the young man was alive.
In one of them, a video was broadcast where Maldonado was apparently seen in a store in Entre Ríos, following a complaint that a truck driver had made to the local police, assuring that he had transferred a young man from the same characteristics of Santiago on National Route 12.
Also Elisa Carrió, who at that time was in the middle of the campaign as a candidate for national deputy of Vamos Juntos for the city of Buenos Aires -election that she won with 50% of the votes-, he stated that there was “a 20% chance that Santiago Maldonado is in Chile with the RAM (Mapuche Ancestral Resistance)”.
From the Justice side, in September 2017 the first judge of the case, Guido Otranto, was removed from the case after being pointed out by the complaint for “bias”, and Judge Gustavo Lleral was appointed in his place.
In November 2017, Judge Lleral closed the case and in his ruling he stressed that Maldonado died by drowning and that he was alone when he submerged in the waters of the Chubut River, in Cushamen.
At the same time, he ordered the dismissal of the only defendant in the case, the gendarme Emmanuel Echazú, who had participated in the repressive operation on August 1.
Among the issues that Lleral left uninvestigated are a series of messages and calls between the head of the Gendarmerie of El Bolsón, Fabián Méndez, and the then Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Security, Pablo Noceti.
Through expert reports made to Méndez’s cell phone, and which appear in the file, Noceti had been informed of the tasks carried out by the Gendarmerie that August 1, and it is presumed that he was even in the area of Maldonado’s disappearance the same day.
The exchange of messages also shows that they were commenting among themselves on the development of the case, and that there could even have been notices from the official about expert reports that the Justice later ended up ordering, as well as evidence of illegal espionage on the Maldonado family’s cell phones. .
When he was still in charge of the cause, Otranto had requested the intervention of the telephone lines around Santiago Maldonado.
After the file was closed at the end of 2017, the family appealed the measure before the Federal Court of Appeals of Comodoro Rivadavia, which in September 2019 responded by ordering the reopening of the case.
From November 2019 to January 2020, and after a series of appeals by the Maldonado family, the case fell three times to Judge Lleral, who was once again at the forefront of the case despite having been challenged several times.
“The mother cause that has to do with the forced disappearance has been paralyzed since March 2020 and no investigation has been carried out since the end of November 2018 to date,” Sergio Maldonado remarked.
The family filed two appeals before the Supreme Court of Justice in March 2020, and after more than two years, on October 4, 2022, the highest court responded by rejecting the requests and argued that it could not rule because it had not previously ” a final verdict.”
In dialogue with Télam, the defense attorney for the family, Verónica Herreraconsidered that this response “demonstrates the lie installed during all these years that everything was already resolved, that Santiago had drowned alone.”
“There is nothing resolved and this is what the Supreme Court has just said,” he added.
The lawyer pointed out that the new witness testified before the prosecutor Baquioni last February and that on that occasion “she said that she saw the gendarme Emanuel Echazú on August 1, 2017, at 1:00 p.m., in the Esquel Gendarmerie.”
“This throws overboard the act that Echazú signed 100 kilometers from Esquel”assured the lawyer about the contradiction in the information provided by the Gendarmerie.
“All the people she names would have to give many explanations about what happened to Santiago,” Sergio Maldonado said about the contribution of the new testimony.
In addition, she confided that “she affirms that they had him (Santiago) in the Benetton ranch where the Gendarmerie squad detachment works and they had him there to remove information from him.”
