Unpublished sentence in Córdoba: they consider a Bulldog and a Rottweiller used by thieves as "weapons"

05/29/2020 - 9:03

• Clarín.com
• Police

Two men were sentenced to five years in prison for a robbery committed on a street in the city of Córdoba in which, to intimidate the victim, they used two dogs that were considered by the Justice as "aggravating", on the understanding that they were used as "improper weapons", judicial sources reported.

The ruling was handed down by the Criminal and Correctional Chamber of the 2nd Nomination of the city of Córdoba, which condemned the two accused for the crime of "robbery qualified by the use of improper weapons" for the act committed in April 2018 in the provincial capital.

The sentence, which was announced by the Judicial Power of the province, fell on the accused Alberto Amatto and Facundo Oviedo , who were walking on a street in the General Bustos neighborhood carrying a male dog of the Dogo Argentino breed and a female Rottweiler.

According to the information in the case, both defendants met a young man who was walking and asked him to hand over all his belongings because otherwise the dogs would be "released".

Faced with this threatening situation, the boy handed over a backpack , a cell phone, a wallet, a pair of slippers and other belongings, after which the criminals told him: "I ran away because we took the dogs away from you" and the victim fled.

The one-man chambermaid, Inés Lucero, was in charge of the prosecution process and in the judgment she considered that an "improper weapon is any object that, circumstantially, increases the offensive power of man due to its effective use as a violent means", as established Article 166 subsection 2 first assumption of the Penal Code.

In this sense, Lucero added that dogs are taken as weapons "not so much for the material, but for the form and use for which it is intended, and it is also necessary that the instrument has a real offensive aptitude."

Among the evidence, the report by the Legal Veterinary Section of the Judicial Police is mentioned, in which it is stated that the animals used in the assault "meet the characteristics of dangerous dogs", given their weight (approximately 40 kilos) and with a "physical build and mandibular force capable of causing injury and even death to people or other animals."

The defense of the accused rejected the figure of "improper weapons" , arguing that this requires a "total and absolute domain of the active subject to handle and manipulate it." However, the chambermaid Lucero said that "both dogs were used to intentionally attack the victim and achieve their furtive ends."