User:Flipwared/Death of Luis Espinoza

Luis Armando Espinoza, a 31 years old argentinian citizen, died during a police raid in the northern province of Tucumán, in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Once his body was found, an investigation (Luis Espinoza case) revealed that he was wrongly suspected of engaging in an illegal horse race, shot to death; and then moved to a police precint. While there, he was covered in plastic and a rug, and -inside a car trunk- moved to the neighboring province of Catamarca, where he was dropped into a ravine.

The public opinion traced similarities between this murder and the Santiago Maldonado case.

On June 2020, the UN launched an investigation on the crime, through the OHCHR.

The Victim
Luis Espinoza was a 31 years-old rural worker, from the town of Melcho, Tucumán, father of six. He had seventeen brothers.

Arrest and Death
On May 15, 2020, while in Argentina there was an ongoing nationwide quarantine because of the Covid-19 Pandemic, Luis Espinoza was found by police on the northern town of Simoca, Tucumán, where an illegal horse race was taking place, also violating the quarantine. The victim was riding a horse along his brother Juan in the vicinity of the race, when nine police officers and a municipal security guard arrived to end the illegal event.

At least four police officers had a struggle with Juan and, when his brother Luis tried to defend him, he fell of his horse and ran; being later shot at his back with a police service gun. The bullet entered through his left shoulder blade, piercing his lung. He died in some moment between the shooting and the moving to the police precint.

He left the precint inside the car trunk of Rubén Montenegro, deputy commissioner, and he was transported 75 miles to the border of the Catamarca province, where he was dropped into a ravine.

Meanwhile, on May 16, 2020, Luis' family tried to file a police report for the disappearance, in the very same precinct where his dead body was taken. The policeman declined the chance to file a report before 72hs time of the disappearance. After several days, the policeman declared having made a silence pact and informed the location of the body. It was found in La Banderita, Catamarca, on May 22, 2020 inside a 492 ft. depth ravine.

Once the corpse was found, an autopsy and balistics report established that the bullet causing the deadly wound came from a police service gun, a Jericho 941 (an israeli tactic .9mm pistol) that belonged to José Morales, one of the accused policemen.

The usage of this weapon by the Tucuman security forces had been under question two years prior to the Luis Espinoza case, since it is not a common weapon for security forces in any other area of Argentina. This resulted in a criminal case for fraudulent administration against the province civil servants, which was dismissed.

Indictements
Several security forces members were accused for Luis Espinoza's crime, under the crimes of forced dissapearance followed by death and kidnapping.


 * José Morales
 * Rubén Montenegro
 * Miriam González
 * René Ardiles
 * Víctor Salinas
 * Carlos Romano
 * José Paz
 * Gerardo González Rojas
 * Claudio Zelaya
 * Fabio Santillán (municipal security guard)

On May 20, 2020, judge Mario Velázquez order the pre-trial detention for the lenght of six months for six of the ten accused. The prosecutor had requested a 12-months remand.