The Federal Court of the Santa Cruz town of Caleta Olivia, in charge of the case investigating the sinking of the ARA San Juan, will carry out a computer expertise on the images captured three years ago during the discovery of the hull of the submarine at a depth of more than 900 meters, and will cite former officials who served in the front line of the Executive at the time of his disappearance, in 2017, to testify as witnesses, reported judicial sources.
These planned measures will advance along the lines indicated by the Federal Chamber of Comodoro Rivadavia, which, based on proposals from the families of the sailors, asked to advance in the clarification of the shipwreck, which occurred on November 15, 2017, and determine the possible criminal responsibilities in the fact by the former president Mauricio Macri, the former defense minister Oscar Aguad and the former chief of the Navy Marcelo Srur.
Judicial sources indicated to Télam that in recent months, about twenty former high-ranking officials of the Navy and former officials of the Ministry of Defense, including the former Secretary of Budget Management of the Ministry of Defense during Aguad’s administration, Graciela Villata.
Along these lines, they pointed out that the next step will be the summons of former officials “in direct relationship” with the former president, to provide testimonial statements.
Four years after the sinking, which occurred while the ship was carrying out a sea patrol in the South Atlantic, and three years after its discovery on November 17, 2018, the lawsuits representing the families of the victims insisted on the claim of “concrete advances “in the instruction, which at the moment accumulates 40 bodies and dozens of annexes and boxes with documentation.
Breach of the duties of a public official
The investigation began in the hours after the vessel lost contact, and, in the first section of the investigation, the judge ordered in January 2020 the prosecution of six high command of the Navy, for the alleged crimes of non-compliance of duties of public official, omission of duties of office and negligent damage aggravated by the result of death in 44 cases.
The defendants were the former commander of the submarine force Claudio Villamilde; the former commander of naval training and enlistment Luis Enrique Lopez Mazzeo; the former Chief of Staff of the Submarine Force Command (Cofs) Hector Alonso; former head of operations department Hugo Miguel Correa; the Chief of Maintenance and Logistics and Maintenance Section of the Cofs, Jorge Andrés Sulia, and the Chief of Maintenance and Arsenals of the Navy, Eduardo Luis Malchiodi.
This resolution of the magistrate, which also ordered the dismissal of Jose Marti Garro, former Chief of Operations of the Training and Enlistment Command, was appealed by the defenses of the accused sailors, and also by the complaints, which asked to investigate the possible responsibilities of Macri, Aguad and Srur in the sinking.
Based on these proposals, the Comodoro Chamber, made up of judges Javier Leal de Ibarra, Aldo Suárez and Hebe Corchuelo de Huberman, issued on November 19, 2020 a ruling in which it confirmed part of the provisions of Yáñez and made place turn to the request, accompanied by the prosecutor Norberto Bellver, to deepen the chain of responsibilities.
The Chamber confirmed the prosecutions of Villamide, López Mazzeo, Alonso and Correa, and reversed those of Malchiodi and Suliá and the dismissal of Marti Garro, and asked to advance on the line of Srur, Macri and Aguad, after the judge considered that it was not Until then it had enough elements to be investigated.
Testimonial statements
Once returned to court, the case continued in recent months with testimonial statements from former high command of the Navy, and former Defense officials, such as Villata and the former undersecretary of International Affairs of the portfolio, José Luis Vila, and sources with access to the file indicated that the next step will be to call as witnesses former officials “with a direct relationship” with Macri during his government.
The objective is to specify “what they knew, what they were informed and what not” to make “a state of composition” at the time of the disappearance and sinking, they assured, and indicated that the summons could also include a former defense minister prior to Aguad.
The court, in line with another of the requests of the Chamber, will also carry out a “technical-computer expertise on the filmic material and mosaic of photographs corresponding to the find“from the San Juan by the Seabed Constructor ship, from the Ocean Infinity company, which located the sunken hull more than 900 meters deep off the coast of Santa Cruz.
For this test measure, a computer expert from the Supreme Court has already been raffled, and the General Prosecutor of the Nation and the majority complaint of the family members offered themselves, headed by lawyers Valeria Carreras and Lorena Arias.
“We are ready to carry it out, as quickly as possible,” said sources of the investigation, and confirmed that although the place and date have yet to be defined, the expertise will be carried out by the Argentine Federal Police.
Luis Tagliapietra, father of crew member Alejandro Tagliapietra and representative of another of the complaints, questioned that measure because he assured that “it does not advance on the search for the real causes of the sinking”.
On the other hand, the player made formal presentations to resume the request for collaboration from the United States and France in the clarification of the shipwreck, based on commitments made in this regard in December 2019, before the pandemic.
