Catamarca: Mayor Enrique Aybar, sentenced to six years in prison for sexual abuse

Mariana Iglesias

08/14/2020 - 15:44

• Clarín.com
• Society

After managing to postpone the trial several times, cover up other complaints and use the minutes of his defense to say that he is innocent and that he does not know the victim who reported him, Enrique Aybar , mayor of a town in Catamarca, had to listen that a court of Justice sentenced him to six years in prison for sexual abuse .

"I am in agreement with the ruling, now we have to hope that the sentence is an effective sentence. I want to thank all the organizations that accompanied us in this process, my lawyers, and especially my family, who had to endure and endure all these years . To my mother above all ... ", said the complainant upon hearing the sentence. Shaken, she couldn't finish speaking.

Now she is a 22-year-old girl, but she was 15 when the events that she reported seven years ago occurred and that this Friday finally a Court considered proven: that on April 24, 2013 , Aybar, who was already mayor of Puerta del Corral Quemado and he had promised her a scholarship, he took her in his car to the capital of the province.

Once there, he left his mother at the downtown El Shincal hotel and, with the excuse that they were going to sign some papers for the scholarship, took her to another hotel, "El Eden", in Valle Viejo, 12 kilometers from the center. . He forced her into a room, where he sexually abused her, beat her, threatened to kill her and her family. Then he took her back to the hotel where her mother was waiting for her. Everything happened between 9pm and 0.30am.

Enrique Aybar, the mayor of Catamarca, convicted of sexual abuse.

Terrified, she managed to tell everything to her mother, who decided to report it. When the events emerged, other girls in the village were encouraged to tell that Aybar had also abused them when he was the school principal. That she fondled them under their white aprons. The families of these girls were threatened. The few who denounced saw their causes disappear or slow down in a Justice that always made a mistake in favor of Aybar.

"Now it's the same. The investigating prosecutor in this case, Víctor Figueroa , did malpractice , because he noted that all the events reported were on April 26, 2013, when the complainant and all the witnesses spoke of 24. So now Aybar and his defense denies the facts because nothing happened on April 26, " the lawyer for the complaint, Sebastián Ibáñez , explained to Clarín .

"The trial prosecutor Miguel Mauvecín should have warned the Court so that the defense had no opportunity to annul the case , but it did not," continues Ibáñez. The prosecutor asked for six years in prison for "simple sexual abuse aggravated by the guard." The defense requested the annulment. 

The lawsuit asked for 15 years because it considered another qualification for the crime, which it considered seriously outrageous sexual abuse -for the amount of time and the circumstances in which it occurred- aggravated by the guardianship.

The defense lawyer, Ortega, this Friday the sentence was known against the mayor of Catamarca, Enrique Aybar, convicted of sexual abuse. Photo: Fabián González

"He psychologically tortured her for hours, he cheated on her with a study grant, he was in charge of the girl because her mother had entrusted her to her," the lawyer details. In addition, psychological experts say that she suffers severe post-traumatic stress due to sexual abusive experiences that they have left him permanent psychological damage. "

The complaint also requested his immediate arrest . But it was not what happened. The Court, with a unanimous ruling, validated the prosecutor's request, and the grounds of the sentence will be read on September 2. Until then, Aybar will be free . "He is a man with power and contacts who has already stopped complaints and this trial several times, he can go," Ibáñez assured Clarín .

Aybar will only be deprived of his freedom when the sentence is final. For the time being, they imposed a restriction on the approach of the complainant and her family. "There are other girls who were waiting for this trial to be encouraged to speak," says Ibáñez. Now we will have to hope that he is imprisoned.

Hundreds of women awaited the sentence against Enrique Aybar, the mayor of Catamarca, convicted of sexual abuse, outside the courts. Photo: Fabián González.

"Rapist! Rapist! Rapist!" shouted the hundreds of women who waited throughout the day of the trial outside the courts. "We wanted to see him handcuffed" , "We wanted him to be arrested immediately", "He can escape", they explained.

Puerta de Corral Quemado is a town with very few inhabitants, Aybar was a teacher and director of the rural school. Since 2011 he is the mayor. This is your third term. The trial should have been held last year, but Aybar managed to postpone it and stand in the elections for Together for Change , which allowed him to run despite all the complaints against him. Aybar won. Now the people have the opportunity to choose again. 

ME