Three days after the murder of their son, in that devastating sleeplessness that they have endured since then, they made the attempt.
Graciela wondered why no one had been able to help Fernando, and for the first time she searched on the phone for the videos that the television was showing in an endless
loop
and that she had not dared to watch.
She remembers that it was three in the morning and that her hands were shaking.
He barely managed to open just one of the videos and had to stop looking at the screen;
Silvino, her husband, could not continue either:
"We lacked courage, we could not."
Three years have passed and the parents of Fernando Báez Sosa (18) still wanted to know how their son died.
They knew that he had been attacked by a mob, the fact of his
defenselessness
, not many others, and the shock that those images caused to everyone who had seen them.
And all the courage that they did not have that first time, they had now: except for the two hearings in which the autopsy was discussed, they were in all those of the trial, and there they found "all the answers."
"We faced the courage to come and find out what happened that night:
I saw how they ambushed him, no one could help him
, they were prepared to attack Fernando like wild hyenas, all calculated to catch their prey, which was my son. They had him marked and I noticed that
after they had killed him, they enjoyed it,
" Graciela told
Clarín
, already installed in Dolores awaiting the verdict that the Court will announce in hours.
It will be at 1 pm this Monday that judges María Claudia Castro, Emiliano Lázzari and Christian Rabaia will say what sentences correspond to Máximo Thomsen (23), Enzo Comelli (22), Matías Benicelli (23), Blas Cinalli (21), Ayrton Viollaz (23), and Luciano (21), Ciro (22) and Lucas Pertossi (23).
The Zárate rugbiers came to trial accused of the crime of "aggravated homicide by treachery and by the premeditated competition of two or more people", which provides for a life sentence.
And it is the same one that the prosecutors Juan Manuel Dávila and Gustavo García requested, and the parents' lawyers, Fernando Burlando, Fabián and Facundo Améndola, and Germán Facio.
For them, they were all co-authors of the crime.
The defense, used for the eight defendants by the lawyer Hugo Tomei
, asked that they be acquitted for the
"inconsistency"
that, he maintained, exists between the original accusation and the one raised by the prosecution at the time of requesting the penalty.
Although, if convicted by the Court, he urged that the act be classified as a "murder in a fight", a crime that provides for a maximum sentence of six years in prison;
This would allow the mob, almost immediately, to access a conditional release regime since they have been in pretrial detention for three years.
Tomei also asked the magistrates to consider the figures of "simple homicide with eventual intent" (it has an expected sentence of 8 to 25 years) or "preterintentional homicide" (3 to 6 years).
The rugbiers remain housed in Penal Unit 6 in Dolores.
Graciela Sosa expects heavy sentences for the eight young people accused of having murdered Fernando.
"We are waiting for what we have been waiting for three years, what we have been asking for, to be done forever for all of them," he says in a tone that reveals his grief: "We
are also condemned to live with this unbearable
, permanent pain
".
On January 2, when the debate began, the Báez Sosa did not hesitate and from the first day they stood behind their lawyers;
the 55-inch screen installed to the right of the stage faced them.
A day later Fernando's friends began to testify and the prosecutors asked each one to locate themselves at the crime scene, pointing to the video recorded by Lucas Pertossi.
There, Graciela saw Fernando for the first time on the screen.
The boy's back is not seen, but it is known that he was eating a frozen grape stick.
Screams are heard and in seconds, his son is already on the floor, stunned, on his knees.
"He raises his hand, as if asking for mercy, while the others kept giving him," recalls the image that was analyzed at each hearing.
She saw her sometimes looking at the screen, sometimes at the rugby players.
"I saw them smile: everything was out of place. I looked at them, yes, but I tried not to. I tried to dodge a bit because I know perfectly well that my son's life ended in their hands. They have no forgiveness."
From where they were located in the room, the rugbiers were kept no more than four meters away.
The defendants, always surrounded by a dozen prison officers.
After the allegations, Fernando's parents returned to their home in Buenos Aires.
"I feel a lot of peace being in my house - says Graciela -,
I want to be at least among my son's things
, all his things intact, I kiss them, sometimes I grab his clothes... Little by little, I am learning to live with this pain".
Now, back in this warm Buenos Aires town, Graciela and Silvino await "very concentrated for tomorrow's sentence."
There will be a special operation that will begin at 6 and will remain until the area is cleared.
Until now, only the block of Belgrano avenue where the Palace of Courts is located had been fenced off from corner to corner;
now the cut will cover six blocks.
-Did you think with Silvino about the day after the trial?
-What will be tomorrow? The truth is, we have nothing in mind. Surely we will find something to continue with our lives. We want to mourn. Now we just hope that Justice gives Fernando the opportunity that the murderers did not give him.
Silver Sea. Correspondent
MG
look too
Crime of Fernando Báez Sosa: where could they be detained and what could happen to the rugby players if there is a conviction?
"Get involved to help someone in need", the moving letter from a friend of Fernando Báez Sosa before the sentence
