He wrapped the body of his wife in a blanket and threw it on the street: for Justice it was not femicide

08/18/2021 11:36 AM

• Clarín.com

• Police

Updated 08/18/2021 11:41 AM

When Raúl Antonio Devias (52) removed the body of María Lourdes Arangio (32) from a house in Colegiales, it was June 2019. Neighbors reported that there was a body, wrapped in a blanket, just behind a truck.

The surprise was so great that it expanded almost as fast as the video in which "El Gitano"

was filmed dragging "a large package"

outside his house.

It was not a lump, it was Lourdes, a woman with whom he had a relationship crossed by violence and drugs.

Everything happened in Céspedes at 2900, during the early hours of Tuesday, June 18, 2019. With the images from the cameras and the testimonies of the neighbors, the police arrived in Devias and arrested him.

According to the autopsy, Lourdes died of congestion and acute lung edema, possibly from drugs supplied days before the discovery.

"El Gitano" was detained and accused of femicide.

In reality, and due to the reconstruction of the violent bond of which Lourdes was a victim, the accusation was for "minor injuries, aggravated by having been committed against her partner and by a man against a woman, mediating gender violence, repeated in at least five opportunities "," illegitimate deprivation of liberty, doubly aggravated by having been committed with violence and repeated threats and against an individual to whom particular respect is due, reiterated on at least three opportunities. "

"El Gitano", at the time of being arrested for the death of Arangio.

According to the ruling, published by

Télam

, the judges Gustavo Jorge Rofrano, Gustavo Pablo Valle and Julio César Báez, of the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) N ° 3 acquitted Devias of all those crimes.

Instead, they decided to convict him of "abandonment followed by death" and sentenced him to six years in prison.

They also acquitted him for the crime of sexual abuse.

The grounds of the sentence -informed- will be announced on Tuesday at 17.40.

Devias was detained for two months.

They then got the benefit of house arrest for a fungal foot infection that they couldn't treat in jail.

"El Gitano" is at his house

and, after his conviction, he returned there.

The house where Devias lived and sometimes spent his days Arangio, in the Colegiales neighborhood.

Photo: Martín Bonetto.

In the indictment, the investigating judge Damián Kirszenbaum, considered it proven that Devias was violent with Lourdes and that he had a "power relationship based mainly on his drug addiction" that he provided when he welcomed her into his home and manipulated her to that he could not leave the relationship.

He spoke of threats, psychological and physical violence.

Also

of abuse, torture and rape

while the young woman was unconscious from drug abuse.

A neighbor of Devias, of Brazilian nationality, had declared that the day before the discovery of the body, the man had offered him 3,000 pesos in exchange for a "job", although he did not go so far as to tell him what it was because he did not accept it.

Lourdes was the mother of two daughters who lived with their grandmother in an apartment in Coghlan.

He went through several hospitalizations to recover from his addictions but could not get out of them.

According to them, 10 days before the discovery of the body, the young woman had left and they did not know anything about her.

His family and other neighbors knew of Devias' threats and that he was the one who provided the drugs.

Also of the fear that Lourdes had of him.

GL

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 the 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

Look also

The death of Lourdes: "She was afraid that he would kill her and hid behind the cars," said a friend of the young woman

Due to an infection in the feet, they gave house arrest to the accused of killing his partner and discarding her wrapped in blankets