The defense attorney for the two young men accused of beating Tiziano Gravier, son of model Valeria Mazza and businessman Alejandro Gravier, in the city of Rosario, considered the 90-day pre-trial detention “excessive” and assured that “if the victim was another person, this fact is not investigated”.
Jorge Bedouret, legal representative of Jesuán Ezequiel M. (26) and Franco Ezequiel Z. (27), the two young people charged with three months in preventive detention for serious intentional injuriesalso slipped the alleged existence of pressure on the Public Ministry of the Accusation (MPA) of Santa Fe.
“It cannot be that the prosecutor receives thousands of calls from all the political and judicial authorities in the country and dedicates himself only to one cause”said the lawyer.
Bedouret did not deny the fact that they were foisted on them, but said that their defendants “have to pass their trial in freedom” and considered that “pretrial detention is an excessive sanction for anyone.”
During an extensive hearing held this Friday afternoon at the Rosario Criminal Justice Center, prosecutor Rodrigo Santana accused the two young men of causing serious intentional injuries to Tiziano Gravier (19), at the exit of a disco in the early hours of the Last sunday.
According to what was recorded on a video surveillance camera, first Franco Z. and then Jesuán M. punched Gravier without any apparent discussion, and called him “tincho”, a derogatory expression towards upper-class people.
As a result of the blows, Tiziano had to be hospitalized first in Rosario and then intervened in the Sanatorio Austral de Buenos Aires for a fracture in the maxilla.
The criminal judge Hernán Postma formalized the accusation and ordered the accused to be held in preventive detention for 90 days, as requested by the prosecutor Santana and the private complaint of the Gravier family, led by the lawyer Germán Pugnaloni.
Defender Bedouret considered the measure of deprivation of liberty to be “excessive”, while accepting the behavior of his clients as “”truly reprehensible”.
“They are boys who have no record, one of Funes and the other of Roldán, nor a traffic ticket,” he said in statements to Radio Dos de Rosario.
In addition, he indicated that “They have a permanent job, a family and roots since they have lived in the same address for many years. They have to pass their process in freedom, preventive detention is an excessive sanction for anyone”.
For the lawyer, the case expresses what he considers an inequality before the law, due to the public knowledge of the victim’s parents.
“I absolutely respect Tiziano’s family, but what does that have to do with investigating differently from the others?” he asked himself.
Along these lines, he pointed out that “if the victim was another person, this fact is not investigated. It comes to nothing because prosecutors can’t deal with these things. Here all the police dedicated themselves to this cause for five days.”
“They are the only breadwinner in the family and they are sent to jail for 90 days, they lose their job. They do not have a passport, there is no procedural danger, these people cannot be left in detention,” the lawyer added.
In addition, he stressed that “if they have to serve a sentence, they must do so when they are sentenced, not after four days of the act.”
