The actress Thelma Fardin appeared this Friday afternoon “in search of justice” in a hearing with the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil, which annulled in final instances the trial against Juan Darthés for sexual abuse by declaring the incompetence of the federal jurisdiction in the case.
Its new team of lawyers, led by Carla Junqueira, together with the Specialized Fiscal Unit on Violence against Women (UFEM) of the Argentine Public Ministryseek to prevent the trial from going back to zero and continuing at the federal level.
“I came in search of personal and collective justice,” Fardin, who has been in the capital of São Paulo since Wednesday for the first time since the beginning of the judicial process against Darthés, who is accused of having sexually abused her during a tour in Nicaragua in 2009, when the young woman was a minor.
“It is very important to be here to stay calm that I did everything in my power,” added the 29-year-old actress.
Juan Pablo Gallego who coordinates the defense of the actress in Buenos Airestold Télam that “Thelma appeared today in the Superior Court of Brazil after the trial was abruptly suspended due to a request from the defendant’s defense”
“Thelma and her lawyer in Brazil Carla Junqueira were received by the Superior Court, since she did not have legal representation and lacked information and participation in the trial,” added Gallego,
The lawyer, who carried out the accusation against the priest Julio César Grassi, stressed that Thelma’s interest because she is assisted by the truth and the reason is that the trial continue, which was already 80 percent advanced and where it was demonstrating the truth of his story and his accusation”
Fardin will continue his meeting agenda this Saturday with a meeting with the Argentine ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Scioli
Gallego estimated that by the end of this month “there will be some news or movement in the case” and considered it “highly important that Thelma begin to play an active role in this process.”
March 28 will be the decisive date to judge the appeal for rectification of the February decision presented by the defense of Fardin.
“There it will be defined whether (the process) remains in the state justice system or goes to the Superior Court of Justice (federal),” explained the lawyer Carla Junqueira, according to the AFP agency.
He also indicated that “the hearings were very good. The judges were permeable to the arguments.”
The mistrial
Last February, The federal court of São Paulo decided to annul the trial initiated in November against Darthés in final instances, considering that it should take place in a state court of São Paulo, without closing the process or acquitting the actor.
After Fardin’s public complaint, in 2018, Darthés moved to Brazil, his country of origin, where he is tried because the Brazilian Constitution does not allow the extradition of nationals.
“The judges ignored in their ruling an article of the Constitution that says that all cases of interest to the union go to federal justice. This is a case of international law in which the Brazilian State must respond to other countries,” Junqueira explained. in reference to international cooperation in the case between authorities from Nicaragua, Argentina and Brazil.
“I came in search of personal and collective justice”Thelma Fardin
The lawyer assured that, if the annulment of the process is not reversed, the strategy will follow “two parallel paths: go to the Federal Supreme Court, which has consolidated jurisprudence, and fight in the state court to speed up the process.”
Prior to its annulment, nine witnesses, including Fardin, had testified in the trial held remotely and interrupted before the actor’s statement.
Fardin said she felt “re-victimized” by “an institutionalized perverse game, with a victim chasing her perpetrator around the world to get justice” and expressed that she is still waiting for “a conviction” to avoid “a feeling of irreparable impunity.”
While, The actress was received by local feminist groups, such as the Grupo Mulheres in Brazil and the Me Too movement in Brazil.
Fardin will continue his agenda of meetings this Saturday with a meeting with the Argentine ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Scioli.
