Why five life sentences and three secondary participations?, the keys to the sentence for the crime of Fernando Báez Sosa

The decision of judges María Claudia Castro, Christian Ariel Rabaia and Emiliano Javier Lázzari resounded in the Dolores courtroom.

Minutes after the convictions of those responsible for the death of Fernando Báez Sosa (18) were known, the foundations of the ruling were known, from which some key elements emerge.

Máximo Thomsen, Ciro Pertossi, Enzo Comelli, Matías Benicelli and Luciano Pertossi were sentenced to the maximum penalty.

Blas Cinalli, Ayrton Viollaz and Lucas Pertossi, to 15 years, for being considered secondary participants.

Why the difference in sentences?

The eight defendants, among whom some were rugby players, came to trial under pretrial detention and accused of double aggravated homicide for treachery.

The court also added the

for the blows to Ignacio Vaudagna, Juan Manuel Pereyra Rozas, Juan Bautista Besuzzo, Lucas Begide and Tomás Agustín D'Alessandro. 

According to Judge Castro's argument, she warns that "the eight defendants organized to attack Fernando with blows" by surprise and from two fronts without the victim being able to notice the surprise of the attack.

The judge establishes the first differentiation between the shares.

"After seeing the state of absolute defenselessness in which the victim was left immediately after receiving the first two blows and the actions of his consorts, they supported the co-perpetrators and, according to the role that each one would assume, provided a collaboration, if well not essential, suitable enough to favor the consummation of the crime", he refers,

to avoid assisting the victim.

The plan

In its foundations, the court establishes that "the original plan" consisted of "attacking Fernando Báez Sosa with blows."

And that for that the eight defendants organized "to brutally beat him, in a group, as on other occasions."

Thus,

The beating as a result of the plan and when he was unconscious on the floor, five continued to hit him with the 'inescapable intention to kill,'" says lawyer Valeria Carreras. 

The judges unanimously considered that in this planning there was not the same responsibility for everyone and established a fundamental point:

"Although it was a sequence that we could call dynamic, in the sense that some moved from the back of the car to the front sector, some of them always remained around Fernando," the ruling explains.

And he adds that "while Fernando was being

, three of the defendants, who saw what was happening,

But when he was lying on the floor, without reaction or defense exercise", Thomsen, Comelli, Benicelli, Ciro and Luciano Pertossi, "directed their will to kill him, taking advantage of the state of absolute defenselessness in which the victim was already found.

Later, with that same division of the sequence, he rejects the defense's request for a subsidiary penalty, which, ultimately, had requested that Fernando's death be understood as a "possible intentional homicide."

"The situation for the defendants changes when the victim is immobilized, semi unconscious and at the mercy of the attackers.

which part of the group continued to inflict until leaving him without vital signs, allows me to affirm - affirms Castro - that in such circumstances They internalized, updating their own knowledge, and directed their joint will and in full agreement, to kill Fernando Báez Sosa," he justifies.

On this point, the specialists acknowledge, the Court of Cassation could focus when the parties -according to what they anticipated- appeal the sentence.

Off record, lawyers, prosecutors and jurists

"They threw the ball up," they speculate, referring to the high penalties.

"Nobody knows the Cassation judges, they work calmer, further from the street," confide sources consulted by

thinking about what may happen after this instance, which in general could take about two years to issue but that With the repercussion of this case, perhaps in less than a year there will be news.

the 50 seconds

The judges established a chronology of the events in which they

and the videos provided by security cameras and cell phone footage of those who witnessed the attack.

The "sequence of the attack on Fernando Báez Sosa lasted no more than 50 seconds," he confirms.

Thus, he organizes the chronology of the events according to the evidence presented in the trial: "At approximately 4:44 hours, Enzo Tomás Comelli hit him from behind while Ciro Pertossi -simultaneously- hit him from the front" .

And he continues: "As a consequence of such blows, Fernando Báez Sosa fell to his knees on the ground and then, when he was already reduced, on the ground and without the possibility of defense, part of the criminal clan - Máximo Pablo Thomsen, Ciro Pertossi, Luciano Pertossi, Matías Franco Benicelli and Enzo Tomás Comelli - taking advantage of the defenseless state in which the victim was left after the first two blows,

, as well as with punches".

What can happen until the sentence is final?

Diego Stratiotis, criminal lawyer, criminal law professor and author, explained to

the instances that will remain until the sentence is final.

"Once the parties are notified, they may file, -according to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Province of Buenos Aires- an Appeal of Cassation in case of interpreting that the court has erroneously applied some legal precept or due to a serious defect of the procedure".

After that instance, "and in the face of the eventual sentence issued by the Court of Cassation, the parties may file what is known as an Extraordinary Appeal for unconstitutionality, nullity or inapplicability of the law before the Supreme Court of Buenos Aires," continues Stratiotis.

Once that instance has been exhausted, they could still "formulate an Extraordinary Federal Appeal before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. Only then, with all those appeals presented and resolved, will the sentence be final."

GL