04/28/2021 10:28 AM
Clarín.com
Police
Updated 04/28/2021 10:28 AM
A judge proposed that a prisoner sentenced to eight years in prison for a crime committed in 2018 and who
does not belong to risk groups
receive the coronavirus vaccine.
Santiago Raúl Servidio, 41, requested access to the benefit of house arrest alleging health reasons.
Although the Justice did not verify his situation, Magistrate Carlos Blanco suggested that he receive a dose of a vaccine against covid-19.
Servidio was sentenced on December 5, 2019 to
eight years in prison
for being the co-author of a homicide that occurred on December 30, 2018.
His defense attorney, Fabián Stillo, considered that he should be granted house arrest since "the pandemic caused by the covid-19 virus is a true risk to his health."
He also mentioned that some time ago his client "had tuberculosis and left spots on his lungs", and related his condition to "COPD".
In July of last year, the Justice partially granted the appeal filed and requested
a medical report
to determine "if the complaints reported constitute problems that could affect the inmate's health."
Following the reports from the Health Area of Unit No. 28, the judge of Criminal Court No. 2 of the San Isidro Judicial Department, Esteban Andrejin, decided
not to allow
the application of a "morigerating measure."
He argued that Servidio is in
good general health
and noted "from spirometry a slight obstruction of the airways related to his status as a former smoker."
Arrested on the roof of the Melchor Romero prison.
Photo Mauricio Nievas / Clarín Archive.
"From such reports it appears that he
does not suffer from any medical pathology
that incorporates him into a risk group in the event of a possible contagion of covid-19," said Judge Gustavo Adrián Herbel, who also rejected Servidio's request.
However, Servidio's lawyer questioned the veracity of the medical report, emphasized the conditions of
"detention and overcrowding"
of the detainee, and that the ruling was not final because it had been appealed to the Criminal Cassation Court for what He asked for new studies by other doctors.
The intervening prosecutor, María del Carmen Gigante,
opposed the
requested
concession
and stated that the current measure of coercion is based "on the existence of procedural dangers in the head of the accused: the violent characteristics that defined the event in trial, the quality of the compromised juridical good (“life”) and the magnitude of the sentence of 8 years of imprisonment dictated, not yet signed ".
In this framework, the Justice confirmed that Servidio must continue serving his sentence in prison.
But Carlos Blanco, another of the three signing judges, suggested "that the necessary means be adopted so that
the person named (Servidio) is given the vaccine against the covid-19 virus
, taking into consideration his health situation."
Last week the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM) had asked the Government of the province of Buenos Aires that inmates be included in the vaccination campaign respecting the same criteria as those adopted for the entire community: people with risk factors and of advanced age.
In 2020,
28 of the 178 deaths
registered in prisons dependent on the Buenos Aires Penitentiary Service were due to coronavirus.
For this reason, the CPM, as a local mechanism for the prevention of torture, asked the Ministries of Justice and Human Rights, and Health, as well as the Provincial Supreme Court, to adopt "urgent measures" to mitigate the impact of the second wave.
Among them, the vaccination of detainees.
Released by covid-19
The impact of the coronavirus in prisons also motivated a controversial measure last year:
the release of prisoners
, several of whom returned to commit crimes, including homicides that shocked public opinion.
According to a report published by
Clarín
last month, 168 detainees in the Buenos Aires prison system were able to access house arrest favored by the instrument that in the Courts was known as the
"Violini ruling
.
"
In Justice, they estimate that there are 25,000 citizens who have passed through one of the 55 Buenos Aires prisons in the last five years and who have recovered their freedom.
Only in the first quarter of the pandemic (March, April and May 2020)
there were 9,158 discharges
.
This includes all the reasons: serving time, extraordinary release, conditional release, temporary release, house arrest.
In April - the month of the "Violini failure" - there were 3,067.
In May, when the Court limited the scope of the ruling, they were 2,516.
And in June 2020, 2,351 people came out who were in a prison cell.
LGP
Look also
They ask that the prisoners be included in the vaccination plan against the coronavirus
Overcrowding, deplorable hygiene and death: this is what Latin American prisons are like in a pandemic