09/17/2021 2:29 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 9/17/2021 2:29 PM
The prosecutor
Juan Patricio García Elorrio
requested the
acquittal of the 35 accused
of "malicious havoc" in the trial that follows them for the so-called "Austral plane tragedy", the aircraft that crashed on the ground of Fray Bentos, Uruguay, on October 10, 1997 and that caused
74 deaths
.
During his plea, which ended on Thursday afternoon, the representative of the Public Ministry understood that the evidence gathered in the investigation and in the debates of the oral trial does not have "the
degree of consistency required
for the principle of innocence to fall."
In this regard, García Elorrio added that in view of this reality the principle of
"In Dubio Pro Reo"
prevails
, which means that
in the face of insufficient evidence, the accused is favored
.
In addition, it considered that the Final Report of the Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Commission of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay (Ciada) is not valid as evidence, which determined that one of the causes of the air tragedy was the
icing condition (freezing) from the Pitot tubes
, which gave the pilots erroneous readings on the speedometers.
To dismiss the Uruguayan report as evidence, the prosecutor considered the conclusions of an expert opinion ordered by the Federal Oral Court (TOF) No. 5, in which most of the experts considered that
the observations
made by the Accident Investigation Board
were
valid.
of Civil Aviation of the Argentine Republic (Jiacc) to said Final Report.
From there it would be inferred that the responsibility for the accident was on the pilots.
However, one of the official experts appointed by the court, Carlos Lupiañez, presented his own report in which he argued that what happened was due to
a failure in the aircraft
.
Now, the Federal Oral Criminal Court 5, made up of judges Daniel Obligado, Adriana Palloti and José Martínez Sobrino, must listen to the
arguments of the defenses
and then issue its verdict.
Austral Flight 2553 crashed on October 10, 1997 and the trial only began on March 24, 2019.
As indicated in a report, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 plane with Argentine registration LV-WEG, which was heading from the Argentine city of Posadas to the city of Buenos Aires, crashed ashore at the Nuevo Berlin ranch, area rural area near the Uruguayan city of Fray Bentos, following
a failure with the Pitot tube system
.
Austral Lineas Aereas had been
managed until 1995 by the Spanish airline Iberia
.
The rejection of families
On the morning of this Friday, the relatives of the victims of the tragedy issued a statement in which they assured that "the prosecutor, with his decision not to accuse and request acquittal,
consecrates impunity
and subjects the victims and their relatives to the most
horrendous and cruel state of defenselessness
. "
"It is a
painful setback
that fully illustrates that in the Federal criminal jurisdiction of Comodoro Py there is no state of justice and only the state of defenselessness reigns, with a
lot of smell of rottenness,
" they assured.
"Yesterday we relived the death of our loved ones, but this time in the hands of the person who had to ensure the rights of the victims, of the Public Prosecutor's Office itself, represented in the person of Patricio García Elorrio, in charge of the General Prosecutor's Office No. 4, who requested in his plea the acquittal of the accused, "said the relatives in a statement entitled
" Between the sewer of Comodoro Py and the state of defenselessness
.
"
2019. Relatives of those killed in the Austral plane tragedy ask for Justice in front of the Courts.
"After 24 years, which are completed on October 10, the prosecutor García Elorrio considered that
he could not accuse for the crime of malicious havoc
for which the accused were prosecuted and on the basis of which both the investigating prosecutor Eduardo Taiano as the complaint and the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 2 made the pertinent requests for a trial ".
The next of kin
criticized
that the prosecutor considered that the final report of the Uruguayan Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Commission was "invalid" as evidence based on the conclusions of an expert opinion ordered by the Court, in which most of the Experts endorsed the observations of the Argentine Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Board.
The families of the victims paid a tribute in 2019, 21 years after the tragedy, and collected objects found at the scene of the accident.
Photo: Martin Bonetto.
"Therefore, the responsibility for the tragedy falls on the errors of the pilots.
We returned to zero,
" denounced the relatives.
"It did not even take into consideration the
dissenting expert report
of the official expert Carlos Lupiañez, who with objectivity and impartiality ruled that the causes of the air disaster were those determined by the Eastern Republic of Uruguay," they added.
"We have always maintained, throughout the lengthy criminal proceedings, that the air disaster of Flight 2553 was
due to the darkest and most corrupt stage
of Argentina's
commercial air navigation
, the 1990s, when the most serious air tragedies occurred: the death of the hostess Lilian Almada (InterAustral), in 1995, and LAPA, in 1999 ", they specified.
Finally, they warned that, "in the event that the TOF 5 issues a sentence acquitting the accused, not only will impunity have been crowned, but it would also imply declaring the Uruguay report null, generating a
possible diplomatic
and / or judicial
conflict
with the sister country and the United States which, as the State of the manufacturer of the aircraft DC 9 32, endorsed the conclusions of the ICAO technical investigation ".
"History repeats itself: the first time as a tragedy, the second as a farce," said the relatives and concluded
yeron: "
Without justice, there will be no peace
for the 74 victims of the Austral tragedy, nor for their families, nor for Argentine society."
With information from Télam.
LGP
Look also
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