Two years after the disappearance of Tehuel de la Torre, the young trans man who disappeared in March 2021, his father admitted that he travels the country with his own car looking for his son on suspicion that he is still alive and was co-opted by a network trafficking, noting that “there is no kind of happiness” in his life after everything that happened.
Meanwhile, the two men accused of having murdered the 22-year-old, Oscar Alfredo Montes (47) and Luis Alberto Ramos (38), continue to be detained and they are waiting for the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 2 of La Plata to set a date for the start of the trial.
For his part, andres de la torre He told Télam that he traveled to various points in Argentina trying to find clues that would lead him to Tehuel, since one of his hypotheses is that his son was co-opted by a human trafficking network.
“They never gave the ball to that possibility. I cannot confirm that she was a victim of trafficking either, but several things caught my attention. She was hired for a job as a waiter on March 6 and it was not done. Later they called her the 11 for the same thing. All this in the middle of the pandemic, it was strange…”, argued Andrés, who he refers to Tehuel with the pronouns referring to his biological sex.
The father of the young trans indicated that at the end of last year he spent more than four months traveling through different locations in the country and assured that He plans to go on a trip again in the next few days.
“I always go with my car, visiting some specific places. As long as my health helps me, I’ll keep looking for her anyway. I hope she’s alive. It affects me not having her and not knowing where she is. All this happened yesterday for me,” Andrés said moved. , who is retired and is 70 years old.
Judicial sources indicated to Télam that There is still no stipulated date for the start of the debatealthough TOC 2, chaired by Judge Silvia Edit Hoerr, will be in charge of determining whether the defendants Montes and Ramos are responsible for the crime of “homicide aggravated by hatred of sexual orientation”.
In this regard, Andrés de la Torre linked the two defendants to the disappearance of his son, He demanded that they give “irreversible life imprisonment” to both and assured that “they have to die in jail.”
“If they are going to give them 10 years in jail, it’s shitting on Tehuel… a lack of respect. If they already had the balls to make her disappear, let them say where she is. They have to talk,” the man exclaimed.
The rakes continue
Meanwhile, spokespersons linked to the investigation confirmed that searches continue to be carried out in various points of the Buenos Aires party of San Vicente to find the potential remains of the missing youth.
This is because the prosecutor’s hypothesis is that Tehuel was murdered by the two now detained and his body still remains to be found.
Members of the provincial police, the Federal Police and the National Gendarmerie intervene in the procedures and were ordered by the prosecutor of San Vicente Karina Guyot, in the framework of the cause derived from the main one, already brought to trial.
Regarding the search operations, Tehuel’s father maintained that “they will not have any effect” since “all the evidence disappeared” after two years.
“The rakes are poorly done. A lot of weapons, little wisdom. In that sense, it is late. The dogs are not going to find anything. I participate with them to move the cause. With anger. I do not do it with hope. Some of them the policemen think they are having a field day while they are doing the raking,” said Andrés.
For the defense, the defendants are “innocent” and are imprisoned for “a political issue”
The lawyer for one of those accused of murdering Tehuel de la Torre and making his body disappear said today, two years into the case, that “both defendants are innocent” and that they are “low-income people who are paying for a political issue “.
This was the opinion of Gustavo Lastra, who defends Oscar Alfredo Montes (47), a scrap dealer accused of the murder of Tehuel (22) and who is currently detained in Lisandro Olmos Penitentiary Unit 1.
In this regard, Lastra indicated that “there is no possibility that Montes made Tehuel disappear” since “he did not have the means to do so” and considered that his arrest was due to “a political issue.”
“Although I defend only one of the two, I believe that both are innocent. They are two low-income people who are paying for a political issue. The only doubt is with the Judiciary,” the lawyer told Télam, also referring to the another detainee, Luis Alberto Ramos (37), who is housed in Penitentiary Unit 28 of Magdalena
In addition, Lastra affirmed that Justice “did not want to find Tehuel” and that “an unprecedented search in the history of humanity was carried out to find him.”
“The lagoons where the tactical divers entered before are now dry. Everything was turned upside down. All the people in the area were searching, searching and searching. If they did not find it, it is because there are powerful people who did not want to find it,” added the lawyer , who estimated that the trial will take place after the national elections.
On the other hand, Gustavo Lastra, defense attorney for the defendant Oscar Montes, pointed out that both suspects are innocent and “that they are paying for a political issue.”
“There is no possibility that Montes made Tehuel disappear. He does not have the means to do it. This was an unprecedented search in the history of humanity. If he was not found, it is because there are powerful people who did not want to find him,” assured in dialogue with Télam.
On the occasion of the second anniversary of the disappearance of the 22-year-old, the collective “Autoconvocadxs por Tehuel” They will gather at 4:30 p.m. this afternoon in front of the House of the Province of Buenos Aires, in Callao at 200, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Nicolás, and then they will move towards the National Congress.
“We continue to be organized and in the streets demanding to appear alive now. We call all organizations and whoever wants to mobilize this Saturday, May 11. We will be doing an open radio and then we will end the day with artivism,” the organization specified.
CELS launched a web special 730 days after the disappearance of Tehuel
The Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) together with the Collective for Intervention in Violence (CIAV) created a special website two years after the disappearance of Tehuel de la Torre, in which they reviewed the events that occurred on March 11, 2021 and the judicial investigation thereof.
The objective of the organizations was “not to naturalize the absence of Tehuel” and claimed that “the lack of response from the state consolidates his disappearance with each passing day.”
“The investigation is similar to the Great Bonnet game: it is as if nobody had the responsibility of putting together a search plan,” they explained from CELS and CIAV.
The web special, which can be seen at CELS official pagehas images, videos and exclusive testimonials of the case.
In this regard, the President of the La Rosa Naranja Civil Association, Marcela Tobaldi explained to this agency that the Tehuel case “has been very hard for the entire LGBTIQ+ community.” and he said that although the group has advanced a lot in recent years, “it was not enough” for Tehuel to continue alive.
“The trans travesti collective has put up a great fight. We obtained the Gender Identity Law and the Trans Labor Quota Law. But this was not enough and it did not reach Tehuel, who disappeared when he was looking for a job. This anniversary of Tehuel it is very symbolic for what it has meant. The trans transvestite community is receiving a lot of hate from cis identities,” Tobaldi said.
Disappearance of Tehuel
Tehuel de la Torre was last seen on the afternoon of March 11, 2021, when he went from his home in San Vicente to the Buenos Aires town of Alejandro Korn to see Luis Alberto Ramos, one of the two detainees on the case. , since he had offered him a job as a waiter at an event.
Ramos, who had a record for “homicide on the occasion of robbery,” acknowledged having met Tehuel on March 11 at 4:30 p.m., but maintained that they did not go to any event and that each one withdrew on their own. However, his version could not be corroborated and prosecutor Guyot requested his arrest.
In addition to Ramos, Oscar Alfredo Montes was arrested, a junk dealer with a criminal record for sexual abuse, whom prosecutor Karina Guyot initially charged with the same crime as the first defendant: “covering up a real contest with false testimony.”
Reward for information and telephone to provide data
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Security of the province of Buenos Aires maintains a reward of $5,000,000 pesos for anyone who can provide information on the whereabouts of the young man.
People who can provide information that helps to find Tehuel must call the quick access number 134corresponding to the National Coordination Program for the Search for Persons ordered by Justice, of the Ministry of Security.
