The Ministry of the Interior decided not to appeal the ruling and will pay more than 1.1 million dollars for damages to the relatives of the victims of the Rocha prison fire, reported Montevideo Portal and confirmed The Observer. On July 8, 2010, 12 inmates died and eight were injured.
A ruling by Judge Rafael Gómez determined that the portfolio should pay compensation of US$3,000 to US$270,000. After that, they had 14 business days to see if they would appeal the measure. When the time came, they decided not to.
“This decision-maker understands that the existence of suffering of the victims has been convincingly and more than proven in the case file, with full evidence of such suffering (…) It is understood that the suffering has existed (…) seeing the non-existence of an effective response, and seeing how their lives were going away, ”said the judge in the sentence.
The criminal angle
The investigation was conducted by Judge Marcela López, who after two and a half years of investigation determined that “it was not possible” to define any criminal responsibility against anyone or attribute the origin of the fire in which 12 prisoners died.
The magistrate, in a ruling issued in December 2012, agreed with the position of the prosecutor Adriana Rocha insofar as “it is not appropriate, from a guarantee approach of the criminal process, to make indefinite accusations in case they are appropriate or not to a specific unlawful conduct. ”.
López understood that it was not possible to find evidence that would implicate any alleged perpetrator. “Nor is it expected that the test can be improved after more than two years of the start of the proceedings,” said the ruling.
The case prescribed in 2020. At that time, the relatives of the victims asked the president, Luis Lacalle Pou, for help so that the case is unfiled.
