Luis Escobar / La Paz
The Public Ministry accused the 16-year-old adolescent who took the life of a 12-year-old girl in a community of Viacha in the department of La Paz for the crimes of rape and infanticide. Specialists warned that being a minor, he can only be sentenced to six years in a rehabilitation center and they fear that he will not be able to reintegrate into society.
On Tuesday, the 12-year-old girl was alone in her house in Vichaya. Her parents and her older brother worked in stucco production. According to the investigation, the 16-year-old teenager knocked on her door at 7:00 p.m. and when the little girl opened it, he sexually assaulted her and then suffocated her with a cell phone charger cable.
According to the report, the defendant confessed that he dragged the girl’s body and left it on the side of the road to simulate a traffic accident. The little girl’s older brother returned to her house at 9:00 p.m. He went out looking for her and found her a few meters away.
The coordinator of prosecutors, Nilda Calle, declared that they identified the aggressor. “There is a witness who would have seen that the adolescent -with criminal responsibility of 16 years- would be beating (the minor) in her room and that she was alone,” she said. The teenager was arrested by the community members and later handed over to the Police. “The accusation will be issued and the hearing of precautionary measures will be awaited,” she added.
He is charged with rape and infanticide. The Public Ministry will request his preventive detention in Qalauma.
Mercedes Cortez, national coordinator of Free Voices, told Page Seven that being a minor does not correspond to 30 years in prison. “As long as he is 16 years old, he will be prosecuted in the field of childhood and adolescence. That means that he alone will have a fifth of the sentence. For example, the crime of infanticide corresponds to a sentence of 30 years, but being a minor, it will only correspond to six. His detention -even- will be in a center for offenders and not in a jail, “she said.
Cortez explained that this measure was made to help adolescents who commit minor crimes, but it never made a difference for those who commit crimes, as happened in Viacha. “In no center in our country is there an occupational rehabilitation therapy or reconstruction of thoughts,” she said. She added that “by committing these serious crimes they are a risk to society and are not in a position to reintegrate.”
Article 268 of the Child and Adolescent Law says: “The criminal responsibility of the adolescent will be reduced by four-fifths with respect to the maximum penalty corresponding to the crime established in the criminal law.” This means that from a sentence of 30 years, she will receive six.
