Higui: "This ruling is going to serve so that we are no longer cannon fodder"

Eva Analía “Higui” De Jesús, the lesbian woman who was acquitted two weeks ago in the trial that followed her for having killed a man when defending herself from a corrective gang rape, assured that this ruling “will serve the those of us who are always cannon fodder” of the Judiciary, “so that they do not arm us with more causes” and that their right to self-defense be recognized.

“This is going to serve more than anything for those of us who are always cannon fodder, the poor pibis and transvestites, so that they do not arm us with more causes; and for the right to defend themselves,” Higui said during the press conference he gave after know this noon the foundations of the sentence.

In the ruling to which Télam had access, judges Gustavo Varvello and Julián Descalzo said that “the global analysis of the evidence, then, allows us to conclude that (…) by inflicting the wound, the accused acted in response to an attack illegitimate, which he did not provoke, using in the emergency a rational means to repel it, given the marked inequality of forces, natural and numerical, thus exempting him from responsibility in the action he undertook and epilogued in the death of Cristian Rubén Espósito”.

Defender Claudia Spatocco highlighted the unanimous decision of the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 7 of San Martín both in the decision to acquit her and in the criticism of the investigation; and that the three members of the court -all men- “had what we always ask for, which is the gender perspective when assessing the evidence.”

“We consider this acquittal as the answer to a very simple question that we were asking, which is ‘Can Higui, a poor, black, lesbian woman, defend herself against a brutal attack like the one she was subjected to, corrective rape?‘ Because the right to self-defense apparently we all have, but she was accused of murder,” he said.

The lawyer pointed out that “beyond the legal”, what was put into play here is “neither more nor less than the survival instinct in the face of an attack”.

“How can we not have this right to defend ourselves? However, for almost 6 years Higui was denied that rightshe was criminalized. And this ruling comes to put an end to an atrocious thought”, said.

Along with Higui and Spatocco were the lawyer Gabriela Conder, the psychologist Raquel Disenfeld, the lesbofeminist militant Adriana Carrasco, the trans activist Alma Fernández, the soccer player Mónica Santino and members of the Assembly for her acquittal.

Two years late in relation to the first date set for the trial, Higui came to trial in mid-March accused of “simple homicide” for defending himself against corrective group rape on October 16, 2016 in Lomas de Mariló, a vulnerable neighborhood in Bella Vista where she had gone to visit her sister for Mother’s Day.

And despite the fact that she reported an attempted gang rape and that she was found fainted at the scene, with injuries to different parts of her body, her pants and underwear ripped, the fact was never investigated as such by the prosecutor who instructed the case, who investigated it the next day and ordered preventive detention.

After eight months in prison, the San Martín Court of Appeals granted her extraordinary release thanks to a strong mobilization to demand her freedom.

“The worst of all is that with that lack of total proof that was the investigation and having witnessed the monstrosity that was the testimony of the person they presented as the only witness to the event -and who for us was always one of the aggressors-, the prosecutor trial accuses Higui of murder and asks for a sentence of 10 years,” added Spatocco.

To plot the implausibility of the testimony of the deceased man’s friend, the lawyer explained that “in order to do what he said Higui did, he would have to have an arm one and a half meters long, and disjointed” since measuring 1.50 he would have to have passed by the shoulder of a man who measures 1.68 and was in the middle, to hit another who measures 1.75 in the heart.

“It must be clarified that the prosecutor does not represent the victim, but rather the interest of a society that seeks to live in a state of law, in no way can one bear that there are prosecutors who ask for a 10-year sentence, only because of their prejudice, for this institutional violence that Higui suffered during all these years and that this ruling comes to put a brake,” he added.

To its turn, psychologist Raquel Disenfeld stressed that “If she didn’t act as she did at that moment, she would die”as many women lose their lives daily “because of gender violence”.

Eve’s plans

Asked about the possibility of making a counterclaim to the State for having subjected her to preventive detention and trial without evidence, Higui was blunt in assuring: “I’m not going to lose six more years, no, in that time I’m going to be a tremendous lawyer.”

“I want to concentrate on studying law, because I can. A cartonera, a fat woman, a black woman, a lesbian can do a lot of things, it happens that they close the doors on you,” she said.

De Jesús assures that now he is going to take care of making all his “dreams” come true, such as the creation of a picnic area, a daycare center with a baseball player “for single mothers”, a community radio station and a soccer school in the Barrufaldi neighborhood of the party of San Miguel, where he lives.

“In my neighborhood there are only cars and drugs, on vacation there is not even a movie for the kids to watch. When you are about to vote, they come to give you a course for three weeks and the rest of the year the kids are out on the street” , said.