✔️ 2022-12-02 18:00:28 – Paris/France.
On October 27, 2002, Argentine María Marta García Belsunce was murdered with five bullets to the head in her home in a gated community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Twenty years later, this crime, one of the femicides that most shocked Argentine society, remains unpunished. A court decided on Friday to acquit by majority the accused Nicolás Pachelo, a former neighbor of the Carmel country, of the murder of the 50-year-old sociologist. However, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for robbery.
The hypothesis of the prosecutor - who had requested life imprisonment for Pachelo - was that the defendant had entered the house of García Belsunce to steal with the complicity of two guards and that at that time he had met the sociologist and murdered her.
Oral Criminal Court 4 of San Isidro rejected this hypothesis and exonerated Pachelo of the murder of García Belsunce. The acquittal decision, which had been leaked to local media a few days earlier, leaves the crime blameless. “Shame,” shouted family members in the courtroom after the sentence was read.
third try
This is the third trial that has investigated the murder of the sociologist. The first sentenced his widower, Carlos Carrascosa, to life imprisonment, but was acquitted after seven and a half years in prison. The second condemned the Belsunce family for concealment.
García Belsunce and Carrascosa, a retired merchant sailor who made his fortune as a financier, had been married for 30 years. On the day of her murder, the woman had been playing tennis with a friend and was waiting at home for her masseuse. Carrascosa found her lying in the half-filled tub and her head was bloody. Two doctors attested that a blow had caused his death and a funeral home signed the death certificate. She was buried the victim of a domestic accident.
But exactly 20 years ago, on December 2, 2002, the result of the autopsy revealed a very different version from the known one: Belsunce had five gunshot wounds to the skull.
The debate in this last trial lasted five months and for the first time had Carrascosa as a witness. In the first, he was the main defendant and in the second, he was prevented from testifying because he felt it could hamper the investigation.
"I've been waiting for this moment for 20 years to be in front of my wife's killer," Carrascosa said during one of the trial hearings. “What keeps me alive is knowing who killed her. I have nothing more to do in life, ”added the widower, pointing to Pachelo, who was watching him with folded arms from the dock. The accused, imprisoned since 2018, has always pleaded not guilty and this Friday he celebrated his acquittal.
This feminicide was one of the most emblematic of the South American country. The case came to the small screen via Netflix with the documentary Carmel: Who killed María Marta? This Friday's arrest brings the investigation back to the starting point. Already after twenty years, hopes of finding out who the murderer was are fading.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS America newsletter and receive all the latest news from the region.
SOURCE: Reviews News
Do not hesitate to share our article on social networks to give us a solid boost. 🤗