Former judicial officer Nora Susana Pellicer, accused of hiding identity and sexual abuse suffered by three children housed in the home for minors Belén in the Buenos Aires town of Banfield during the last civic-military dictatorshipdenied having known or having the authority to have resolved the fate of these minors, whose mother had been murdered by joint forces of the illegal repression.
Before the magistrates of the Federal Oral Court number 1 of La Plata, in charge of the oral and public trial of this case against humanity called “Hogar Belén”, the former judicial official gave an account of how she became secretary of Martha Ponsand clarified that his goal “was to deal with criminal matters, I don’t care“,
“Had worked as a teacher in an Engineer Budge villa in 1972 and he had seen that it was not made for the assistance part. He suffered a lot when he saw the needs of these people, “he indicated at the beginning of his statement.
The March 15, 1977in the early hours of the morning, repressive forces surrounded the house located on Nother streets, between Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego, in the San José neighborhood, Almirante Brown district, where Vicenta Orrego Meza de Ramírez lived with her three children, Alejandro Mariano , María Esther and Carlos Alberto (2, 3 and 5 years old respectively).
The woman, whose husband and father of the children was imprisoned, had given lodging to a couple of Montonero militants, María Florencia Ruival and José Luis Alvarenga, who were fleeing persecution by the forces of illegal repression.
Without alerting about their presence, without informing the surrender of the residents and without identifying themselves, surprisingly, they opened fire on the building for at least fifteen minutes, the prosecution specified in the reading of the elevation, and highlighted that a ceasefire was requested from inside the house to be able to evacuate the children who were in the house.
Vicenta managed to get her two older children out of a window and when they left with the 2-year-old in her arms, she was riddled with bullets. the three children stayed with a neighbor who days later took them to the local police station, which intervened Court of Minors number 1 of Lomas de Zamoraby Marta Pons, whose secretary at the time was Nora Susana Pellicer.
“I did not know Dr. (Marta) Pons, I am in charge of an exchange with Dr. Pons’s son-in-law. And when I entered I took care of criminal matters,” he declared, although he acknowledged that there may be “causes signed by me in the assistance”.
Pellicer, throughout his investigative statement, which lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes, sought to prove that he had no knowledge of what happened to Vicenta’s three children when they were housed in the Hogar de Belén de Banfield, where they suffered mistreatment, rape and sexual abuse.
“The secretary (of a court) does not make opinions,” he remarked and detailed several pages of the file that was generated with the case of the three Ramírez children, in which his signature does not appear but that of other judicial actors, such as psychologists or advisors. .
He specified that “the interned boys were (responsibility) of Dr. Pons” and explained that “the advisor was the guarantor and there was also a technical team, who were the people who ruled. Something that the secretary did not rule on.”
The former judicial official also stated that she did not know “what was happening outside (the court), socially, it will not seem credible but it was like that. I found out what was happening with the Trial of the Boards“.
Pellicer is being tried for the events that took place at the Hogar de Belén between March 21, 1977 and December 26, 1983, linked to the sexual violations, beatings, abuse and retention and concealment of the identity of the brothers Carlos Alberto Ramírez, María Ester Ramírez, Alejandro Mariano Ramírez, children of Vicenta.
As stated in the trial, “shortly after they entered the Home, the Ramírez children were subjected to infamous treatment (or mistreatment) and serious and outrageous sexual abuse, which included rape. These abuses extended practically throughout the period in which they were housed in the Parochial Home, by Manuel Maciel, his son Jorge Maciel, the aforementioned “Marcelo” or “Gordo” (presumably Reynaldo Vera) and Juan Carlos Milone (“El Flaco”)”.
Both the boys and the girl were sexually abused and raped by the aforementioned men, who beat them and threatened to kill them if they resisted the submissions that generally took place in the bathroom.
