Esteban Mikkelsen Jensen
08/29/2020 - 18:04
- Clarín.com
- Police
Virginia Créimer (52) spent more than 10 hours last Tuesday in the laboratory of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), in the former ESMA, where the autopsy was carried out on the corpse that, according to her mother, is Facundo Astudillo Castro , disappeared since April 30 and with the Buenos Aires Police under suspicion. As the experts could not be with their cell phones, the forensic doctor only found out at the end of the day that her 84-year-old mother had been admitted for a serious coronavirus picture.
The expert witness - assisting Cristina Castro - specializes in detecting torture in the bodies of those who died in the custody of the security forces. Speak in inclusive language. Also in Bioethics and Legal Medicine classes before her students at the Arturo Jauretche National University (in Florencio Varela) and at the National University of La Plata (UNLP).
"At the beginning, a couple of years ago, the reaction of the students was first of surprise, but they immediately settled down. Others found it a little more complex, but they made an effort to understand that it was important to use it. The kids thank me for it. My goal is to break with the structure that does not allow diversities, such as LGBT and more, to feel contained within the story, "he explains.
Créimer, who earlier this year denounced a civil judge for sexual abuse and injuries, says that in the three decades he has been working on criminal profiling of the security forces, his worst moment was when he determined, with his expertise, that the repressor Miguel Etchecolatz, now 91 years old, had to remain in prison in the Ezeiza prison.
-You were afraid?
-More than fear, I was terrified. It destroyed my life, it was a before and after to investigate if Etchecolatz could go home or if he had to continue in Ezeiza. Since I have dedicated myself to this, I have received all kinds of threats, either by telephone, breaking the windows of my cars every time I was about to go to an oral trial against the Buenos Aires, until they dismantled one of my dogs and left him lying on me at the door.
The body autopsy was carried out in the laboratory of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF). Photo Guillermo Rodríguez Adami.
-What happened to you then?
-One day I arrived at my house and I found a bloody knife in the lock, in the middle of the day, near La Plata, and my teenage daughter was sleeping inside and I didn't know if the blood that was dripping from the knife was hers or not. The objective was for me to get rid of the State, to get rid of the investigations, and they succeeded, because there was no State to take care of me. I gave up what I had earned, a job as deputy director of the Attorney General's Office. That day I felt that I had died, that day they killed me, I felt that that knife went through me.
-Which is the worst performing security force?
-I can tell you which one I know best, which is Buenos Aires. I have seen atrocities, I have seen many kids suicides in police stations, so crudely that you say 'this force controls itself', because governments pass and it has a power of control over society that they have not been able to bend their arm. There are others that are brutal, but less organized, so you can find the fault right away.
-How is La Bonaerense according to your work experience?
-La Bonaerense is very experienced and is much more detailed and thorough than the other forces because, among other things, it has human rights organizations such as the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM) with several eyes on, seeing what they do and do not . Then they are refined. Many times, when I am lecturing, personnel from the forces appear to me listening to where I have gone in the investigations of injuries, torture, harassment and deaths.
-What irregularities were there in the procedure after the discovery of the body that could be Facundo Astudillo Castro?
-What was irregular was the way of approaching the discovery of any body. When a body is found it does not matter in what condition it is found. You have to do a criminal analysis. The first to enter the scene and / or crime scene are criminal experts, and they did not appear here.
-What impression do you have of Cristina Castro?
-She's a fighting mom. She puts all the grip on the investigation with how painful it is for a mother to be in these circumstances. She has an admirable strength, she is in everything, not only in the shoe. In all the meetings she is there and listens to the toughest questions you can imagine about the case, and she asks them.
- Do you have the conviction that this body suffered a violent death?
-Yes.
Meeting of the mother of Facundo Astudillo Castro in the Buenos Aires Government. Photo Mauricio Nievas.
-What would be the evidence to support it?
-The phenomenon of 'pink teeth', or pink teeth, occurs in violent deaths by suffocation that, in general, also occur by submersion. Death takes less than a minute to arrive. The phenomenon describes that the blood enters the dental capillaries and as death occurs it does not return to the circulatory stream, that is why the teeth are pink, because they are filled with blood, to put it simply, as happened with this body.
-Would that explain a violent death?
-This phenomenon, which I also found in the Franco Casco case (NdR: in Rosario), tells us of a violent death by asphyxiation. What needs to be determined is whether this suffocation is caused by strangulation, forearm compression of the neck, or submersion.
-You have no doubt then that death was violent.
-It is a sign of vitality that is strictly related to this: with a violent death by suffocation, science says, Créimer does not.
- The presumption that the body could have been treated with acid or lime, do they still have it or did this change with the autopsy?
-My appraisals were preliminary, through photos. With the fact of having been in front of the body, the chances that it has been subjected to lime in my judgment decreased almost to zero. There may have been another substance, but the body was in better condition than it was seen through the images.
- Were there clothes on the body?
-Not. They only found one shoe 30 meters away. There were remains of cloth and in a second raking they found a pair of stockings.
The shoe found 30 meters from the body that is presumed to be Facundo Astudillo Castro.
- Could it be determined if they hit him?
-There is no evidence other than this asphyxia, which is enormous evidence that there was a traumatic death, a violent death.
-Do you think the shoe was planted in the place, because of the state it was in?
-Yes.
EMJ