The Pilar Gender Prosecutor’s Office ordered this Wednesday the arrest of ten police officers involved in the crime of Sofia Fernandeza 39-year-old transgender girl who was found dead on April 11 while she was deprived of her liberty in a cell at the 5th Presidente Derqui police station.
The officers who were at the police headquarters that night first said that he had died of a sudden death and then maintained that he had taken his own life, but the autopsy on the victim’s body revealed a terrifying fact which made the case take an unexpected turn: “Sofía had a thong and a piece of mattress in her throat, which obstructed her airways”reported from the Public Prosecutor’s Office to TN at the beginning of the investigation.
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From that moment, the officers were charged with failure to fulfill the duties of a public official and prosecutor Gonzalo Aguero ordered a series of testing measures that took exactly one year to finish analyzing. As the months went by, the case was transferred to a prosecutor’s office specialized in gender, since it was a hate crime.
In the last hours, prosecutor Manuel Cayela, head of the Pilar Gender Prosecutor’s Office, prosecuted five of them for the crime of “homicide qualified by hatred of gender identity, by premeditated collaboration of two or more people and by being perpetrated by members of the police force.”and ordered his arrest.
In addition, the rest of the police officers were also processed and arrested for “qualified concealment because the preceding act is especially serious and because it was perpetrated by members of the police force and falsification of a public document.”
Among the grounds for requesting the arrest, the officials took into account the autopsy report that determined that Sofia was tortured until her death. The expertise you accessed TN determined that: “The death was due to the actions of three or more people, in unison by reducing the victim by blows with hard and blunt objects to the torso and backwith a high kinetic energy contusion on the face, which caused nasal and jaw trauma that ensured his unconsciousness”.
“There is no doubt, furthermore, that she was violently and strongly held by her four limbs given the presence of prehension marks, some with nail prints. The concurrence of anal sexual abuse maneuvers given the cytogenetic findings,” details the forensic report.
As for the motive, it was concluded that it was “hatred for their gender identity”. The arrest request included a series of chats between the police on the day of the death, where they made fun of Sofía because of her condition. “These bastards just report you. The guy is a son of a bitch, you could see all his balls, he has more balls than me,” was one of the many aberrant messages incorporated into the case.
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The police officers arrested for the homicide are deputy assistant Carlos Rodríguez, sergeant Yésica Isabel Núñez, second lieutenant Viviana Ruiz, sergeant Gonzalo Germán Robles, and deputy assistant officer Ezequiel Francisco Ibañez Ávalos.
Meanwhile, the officers imprisoned for concealment are the head of the police station, Daniel Eduardo SalerniDeputy Commissioner Mirian Valor, Sergeant Gabriela Miño, Officer Camila Pitular and Assistant Officer Gustavo Gabriel Camacho.
An alleged robbery, an arrest and the worst ending
The event that ended with Sofía’s death began on Saturday April 8when A neighbor from the Villa Rosa neighborhood called 911 to inform that A woman had entered his house for criminal purposes. According to the version of the complainant, Sofía “he jumped over the wall” of your home and “attacked with blows” to rob him.
Minutes later, several officers from the 5th Presidente Derqui police station arrived at the scene and took her into custody. Sofía was housed in one of the cells from the police headquarters, located on Route 8 between Vicente López and Ambrosetti, where spend the night.
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The next day, Sofía was questioned by the prosecutor of UFI No. 4 of Pilar, Gonzalo Aguero, but refused to testify. It was then that the official requested preventive detention from Judge of Guarantees No. 7, Walter Federico Saettone.
During midnight that same Monday, his family received the worst news. “They came to my house and They told me that Sofía had died due to sudden death. Then they told me that had committed suicide. We do not believe that version. Sofía did not kill herself, they killed her«Mabel, the victim’s sister, assured TN.
All suspicions fell on the police officers who were on duty that night, although they flatly denied the accusations and continue to maintain that it was a suicide.
The moments after Sofia’s death
The fact that Sofía’s death occurred inside a police station made the prosecutor order remove the police from the province of Buenos Aires and requested the intervention of the National Gendarmerie, to preserve the scene of the events. The cell where the victim was housed was closed and sealed.
Then, notification was given to the provincial Commission for the Memory and to the overseeing judge of the 5th Police Station of Pilar, who acted in Sofía’s arrest, as well as the head of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Security.
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The most difficult thing about the incident was notifying the victim’s family about his tragic end. For this, the prosecution convened the Crisis Committee, who together with the Gendarmerie and psychologists from the Expert Advisory Department were in charge of breaking the sad news to her sister, who lived on the same land as Sofía, but in separate houses.
The uncertainty among Sofía’s loved ones was total. Nobody knew what had happened, nor why she had been detained, completely disbelieving the version of the neighbor who called 911 that Saturday, April 8. “We really don’t know why they deprived her of her freedom, they gave many confusing and contradictory versions. Sofía was not a criminal,” said her sister.
What the neighbor declared that night was that Fernández had entered her home to steal: “She jumped over the wall and when the neighbor saw her she said ‘what are you doing here’. Immediately afterwards, Fernández attacked the woman with blows.. It is not known what condition the person involved was in and what was the reason why she scaled the wall,” a senior judicial source told TN. «The woman was summoned to ratify the complaint and he said exactly the same thing,” he added.
In turn, the same source reported that a study was carried out on the neighbor at the Medical Corps, to verify the injuries that Sofía had allegedly caused that night.
Underwear and a piece of mattress in the throat: the terrifying data discovered in the autopsy
When the prosecutor’s office was notified about Sofía’s death, they summoned local SAME personnel and doctors from the Gendarmerie. Both confirmed that the victim’s body had no external injuries, so the prosecutor requested an autopsy “as soon as possible,” according to the file.
Then record books were seized of entry and exit of the guard, the presenteeism form, the CORES hours, and the file of Sofía Fernández, for which she was detained. It was also requested DVR recordings that was installed in the unit, however, the head of the police station reported that “was not in operation”.
Sofía’s body was taken to the Morgue in the town of Temperley, where experts found both her underwear and a piece of mattress inside the trans girl’s throat. “I had a thong and a piece of mattress. «These elements obstructed his airways,» the prosecutor’s office explained to TN.
In addition, they reported that “he had no external self-defense injuries.” In this context, Gonzalo Agüero requested a expertise in the victim’s nails to “perform a genetic profile and compare nail samples from their two hands, and thus determine if there is DNA compatible with any of the accused”.
The case is in the full investigation stage and the prosecutor also requested other evidentiary elements that could help clarify the case. Among them, a report was requested from the telephone companies that impacted the antenna near the police station where the events occurred on April 8, 9 and 10. From there came the aberrant chats between the police officers.
“The only thing we know is that Sofía died from traumatic asphyxiation. We are far from thinking that Sofía committed suicide. They killed Sofia. There are many contradictions in the statements of the authorities who were in charge of her that night,» her sister told her. TN.