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The other victim who suffered and was able to face the femicide of Úrsula Bahillo

2021-02-11T20:37:09.699Z


Florencia Veloz (32), a policeman, worked together with Matías Martínez (25) at the Rojas police station. When they separated, his niece - a 13-year-old girl - said he abused her.


Natalia Iocco

02/11/2021 4:55 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • Police

Updated 02/11/2021 4:55 PM

Florencia began her relationship with Matías Martínez towards the end of 2018. “The first thing she did was keep me under her control, always telling me that she was doing it for love.

Then the verbal aggression and all the forms of denigration that you can think of ”, she says, looking at him from a distance.

Her story and that of her family intersected with that of Úrsula Bahillo (18) on the same day of the femicide that shocked Rojas.

First, because, hours before, Florencia was leaving a medical consultation and found several voice messages on her cell phone.

It was Úrsula, who - given the lack of answers - wove networks with other women who had also been victims of Martínez.

In that conversation, which lasted for several messages, Úrsula offered her evidence that could help her in another investigation, for which she

should have been imprisoned

, the one that would have saved her life.

Florencia Veloz (32) began her relationship with Martínez (25) in December 2018. They shared guards, franks and weekends.

She traveled the 164 kilometers that separate Rojas de 9 de Julio, her city, to work and they returned together.

They were together until mid-April 2020 when he was able to say enough.

At that time, she had requested a license from the Buenos Aires Police, had handed over her regulation weapon, because she did not feel "in a position to have that responsibility."

He was afraid, for her and for him.

Florencia Veloz is on leave from the Buenos Aires Police.

“There was no more to carry a weapon.

I decided to present the medical folder because I did not feel qualified to have the weapon and be with him.

I decided to get away, the relationship continued a bit but I also wanted to get away from him, "he recalls in dialogue with

Clarín

.

And he describes: “I was not afraid of him.

I was scared of the way he made me feel.

It led me to be a violent person, he was afraid of me when I was with him

.

Because he put me in a situation where I had to defend myself and he violated me.

He realized that he couldn't control or subdue me, what he was doing was pushing me to react ”.

The violence and manipulation turned his life upside down.

She could no longer work in the Force or say anything to her superiors because she "knew" that it could harm her.

The portrait of the femicide Matías Ezequiel Martínez in the march in Rojas.

Photo Lucia Merle.

“At first, he had no contact with my family because I am very reserved.

He pretended to be a good, calm person.

So I felt safe to introduce it, I have a daughter, so I always take care of her.

My family received him very well, he came and we were together.

We shared dinners, lunches, walks ”, recapitulates Florencia, who is still undergoing medical treatment and has not been able to get her job back.

It was one of those nights, while they were already estranged, that Martinez abused a 13-year-old girl.

When Florencia cut the link with the Buenos Aires official, the girl felt safe and told what had happened to her: “She told her that if she told what had happened she was going to kill me and my daughter.

He told what had happened and at that moment we filed the complaint.

Thank God I didn't have the gun in my hand, I thank God.

It was horrible

, everything

was horrible

”, he laments.

In their account, they also discovered that Martínez manipulated the girl for some time with harassment and harassment over the phone.

Information that they were able to contribute to the cause and that Úrsula had in her hands, those were the evidence that the adolescent tried to give to Justice and share with Florencia that Monday around 16:00. Four hours later, Martínez killed her.

The anger of an entire town for the femicide of Úrsula Bahillo in Rojas.

Photo Lucia Merle

Florencia knew that Martínez was in a relationship with Úrsula.

"For me it was a terrible shock what he did with Úrsula. Because

I saw myself in her

, in her place and I imagined his face: looking at her

with hatred, with contempt, with those cold eyes

. I put myself in her place, in what he will have suffered, in the terror he will have had, "lamented the young woman.

"It was a girl, I am 32 years old and I had more tools to face it. Since Belén's complaint, in 2017, he had to have been in prison: he threatened Belén's children with his regulation weapon, he should have already been in prison" , is outraged.

Later, for having abused his niece, he should also have been in prison: "My niece was never given a perimeter or a harassment cease because they alleged that he was in Rojas. The first months were living in fear because we did not know what What I could do. More than anything because he had the gun, I found out from Úrsula that he no longer had it, "confesses Florencia.

On December 22, due to delays related to the pandemic, the girl was able to testify in the Gesell Chamber and the experts confirmed her story.

With this information, on January 5, prosecutor Sebastián Villalba, from UFI No. 2 of Mercedes, requested the arrest of Martínez.

But Facundo Guillermo Oliva, head of the Court of Guarantees No. 2 of Mercedes, was on vacation.

March in Rojas after the femicide of Úrsula Bahillo.

Photo Lucia Merle.

Villalba's request fell to his replacement, Marcelo Enrique Romero, who excused himself from resolving the arrest request because he was at a judicial fair.

On February 4, the prosecution insisted with the request, but it was not resolved and Martínez was free to kill Úrsula, as

Clarín

announced

this Wednesday.

In parallel to the progress of the court case, when Florencia and her family filed the complaint for aggravated sexual abuse, she warned her superiors about what had happened with the intention that they take action and notify Internal Affairs. 

At that time they decided to transfer him to Pergamino, and when they notified him of the resolution, he threatened his superior, another policewoman who also initiated an administrative investigation.

It was only when the complaint of abuse emerged in a local media in Rojas that they decided to transfer him back to San Nicolás, they took his weapon away and transferred him to administrative tasks.

He stopped reporting to the guards and applied for a psychiatric license, in September 2020.

In the last ten years in Argentina there is an average of one femicide every 30 hours.

According to statistics from the Office of Domestic Violence of the Supreme Court, in 2018 alone there were 278. Most murders occur in the homes of victims and are committed by partners or exes.

Where to call

Line 144

Care for women in situations of violence.

Line 137

Attention to Victims of Family Violence.

911 Emergencies

EMJ

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-02-11

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