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Alfredo Yabrán, 25 years after his death: the all-powerful businessman, the crime of José Luis Cabezas and the outcome in solitude

2023-05-19T23:08:21.866Z

Highlights: Alfredo Yabrán was accused of instigating the murder of photographer José Luis Cabezas. He committed suicide with a shotgun on May 20, 1998, 16 months after the murder. The story came to the Netflix platform last year under the title "The Photographer and the Postman: The Crime of Cabazas" The judge in the case sought to establish the relationship between the businessman and Gustavo Prellezo, the policeman accused of commanding the gang that was the material author of the kidnapping and crime.


Cornered by the Justice, he committed suicide with a shotgun on May 20, 1998, 16 months after the murder of the photographer.


Alfredo Yabrán was a businessman with a lot of power. Owner of Ocasa, he was attributed the ownership of other companies in the telepostal sector. His profile was practically secret until 1995, when Domingo Cavallo denounced him in Congress. He characterized him as a "mafia" leader benefiting from political protection.

There were no known images of Yabrán until the summer of 1996, when José Luis Cabezas, a photojournalist for Noticias magazine, managed to photograph him walking along the beach in Pinamar. On March 3, 1996, his image hit the cover of the weekly.

A year later, the photographer returned to cover the summer season in Pinamar and on January 25, 1997 he was killed by a group related to Yabrán. He was handcuffed, had been shot twice, and the car in which he appeared had been set on fire.

Alfredo Yabrán on the cover of Noticias magazine with the photo of José Luis Cabezas.

All eyes turned to Alfredo Yabrán as the possible instigator. From the beginning, the judge in the case, José Luis Macchi, sought to establish the relationship between the businessman and Gustavo Prellezo, the policeman accused of commanding the gang that was the material author of the kidnapping and the crime. Yabran's security chief, Gregorio Rios, was also detained and charged.

Prellezo articulated the crime with a criminal gang known as "Los Horneros." The then cash of the Bonaerense was at the service of the postal businessman Alfredo Yabrán.

The postal entrepreneur Alfredo Yabrán.

Those convicted of the murder of photographer José Luis Cabezas are currently exempt from prison, while the perpetrator of that act, former police officer Gustavo Prellezo, is fit to practice law, having been registered by the Public Bar Association of the Federal Capital.

The judicial situation of the businessman became increasingly complicated and the outcome of his life was violent: on May 20, 1998, he committed suicide with a shotgun shot.

The story came to the Netflix platform last year under the title "The Photographer and the Postman: The Crime of Cabezas." "The documentary is on the one hand a way to express our thoughts, but also a way to invite viewers to think, to debate and to remember," said director Alejandro Hartmann.

The night Mirtha Legrand refused Yabran a bottle of champagne

In December 2016, when the 20th anniversary of the murder of José Luis Cabezas was about to be celebrated, Mirtha Legrand invited journalist Gabriel Michi, the photographer's colleague, to her table.

During the talk, the host recalled her only encounter with Alfredo Yabrán, the postal entrepreneur who committed suicide when they were looking for him to arrest him, accused of having instigated the crime of the photojournalist who took the first photos that were public.

The television diva told what happened when the target for the murder of Cabezas wanted to give her a bottle of champagne.

Clarín's chronicle of the day of Alfredo Yabrán ́s death

"Don't open that door.
-Why?
"Because Don Alfredo is inside and he's going to shoot himself if he opens it. If they enter, they are killed.


It was one o'clock in the afternoon and the police commission had just entered the hull of the San Ignacio ranch, between Concepción del Uruguay and Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos. According to two people who participated in the procedure, those who spoke like this were the landlord of the establishment, and the head of the Departmental Division of Concepción del Uruguay, Chief Commissioner Ceves.

Estancia San Ignacio, where Alfredo Yabrán committed suicide 25 years ago.

It was this officer who handled the doorknob of the only suite of the helmet. The shot of the 12/70 shotgun loaded with pellets resounded immediately. The next image the policeman saw was a body, dressed in a blue jogging, white T-shirt and gray Adidas sneakers, lying almost neatly on the bathroom floor. The bathroom is not very big. And the door was open.

The dead man's face was unrecognizable. But even so those who had gone looking for him did not hesitate. It was Yabran. Alfredo Yabrán had been wanted since Saturday morning. The accusation: being the instigator of the crime of photographer José Luis Cabezas, murdered in Pinamar on January 25, 1997. Until yesterday, the big question was knowing his whereabouts.

And how much can be known about his multimillion-dollar businesses and his oiled contacts with power. Although, according to the Minister of Government of Entre Rios, Faustino Schiavoni, Yabrán left two letters on the desk of the room: one for his brothers and another for his secretary.

Estancia San Ignacio, where Alfredo Yabrán committed suicide 25 years ago.

San Ignacio is a field of 2,800 hectares, is planted and looks like a model establishment. It appears as property of the firm Yabito S.A., belonging to Yabrán. It was the first time that the police raided him, although he had tried his luck in other fields close to the businessman. Check, no problem, they had told the police the marriage of landlords.

The helmet that belonged to the estancia Guipuzcoa, annexed three years ago to San Ignacio, is not too luxurious. Everything was spotless and the floors were freshly waxed, with no indication that anyone was inhabiting it. There were only two details that caught the attention of the researchers: the heating was on and, in the kitchen, there was a table served with a snack for three or four people.

That's why they kept checking carefully, until they reached the master suite. The shot not only resounded in the ranch, but throughout the country. Literally, the impact generated conspiratorial versions, inside and outside the Government.

While on the street, most did not want to believe that it was Yabran who had turned up dead, alone, in one of his best-known camps, without bodyguards to protect him and without, apparently, trying to avoid the inevitable.

Estancia San Ignacio, where Alfredo Yabrán committed suicide 25 years ago.

Three hours after the shooting, the judge of Gualeguaychú, Graciela Pross de Laporte, had set up her office in one of the rooms of the estancia. The police had already surrounded the place and no one who had nothing to do with the investigation entered the helmet.

The zeal to keep the place sealed went so far as to stop the trip of the head of the Gendarmerie of Concepción del Uruguay 7 kilometers from the ranch. According to testimonies of the landlords, Yabrán would have arrived in San Ignacio on Friday, although other versions say that he had been these last days in another estancia of his: La María Luisa, in Colonia Elía.

And that he had only arrived in the last hours to San Ignacio. So far, the versions agree that it arrived only. Although an unconfirmed version of the Entre Rios Police indicated that when the commission arrived at the helmet, a 4x4 truck left the property through a rear gate.

If this is so, one would have to wonder if it was not an attempt to get the commission to divert its efforts in following that vehicle and give the businessman time to escape. The same, an investigator said it seemed that Yabran had no escape plan. And the only hypothesis is that it passed from one room to the other, dodging potential raids.

A raid in search of the fugitive Alfredo Yabrán in the Viejo Botín field, prior to the suicide.

Yesterday there were also reports that Yabran was hiding for some time in La Zelmira, another of his camps. Yabrán was born 53 years ago in Larroque, Entre Ríos. And many of his relatives still live there. That is why the first to arrive in San Ignacio were two of his brothers: Amelia and Miguel Oscar, some of his nephews, and his lawyer in that town, Rubén Virué.

Only at 18:30 p.m. did the judge allow Miguel to enter to recognize the body. A source in the investigation said that the relatives cried next to the house of the landlords, while in the master suite the expert reports continued. The shotgun was the first test they removed from the bathroom. The judge questioned the landlord right there, in the town of San Ignacio, but did not stop him.

He then ordered the body to be transferred to the morgue of the Gualeguaychú cemetery. But first, he asked for a CT scan at the Cometra sanatorium, located in the center of the city. By that time, Gualeguaychú was abuzz. Nervous about the harassment of onlookers and journalists, the firefighters who moved the body would have hit it against a crossbar when they got it out of the ambulance.

The study indicated that there were between 30 and 35 pellets lodged in the head of the entrepreneur. A little later, Dr. Antonio Robles, in charge of the expertise, said: The skull would have exploded. The face is totally deformed. And the state of the body is normal. From there, Yabran's body was taken to the morgue, covered with a red cloak.

When the firefighters' ambulance arrived, escorted by a motorcycle and two patrol cars of the Gualeguaychú Police there were already about 300 people: many were on bicycles, others had arrived on horseback. And none wanted to lose detail.

However, the same lockdown operation that prevented journalists from entering San Ignacio was repeated in front of the morgue, on Maestra Piaggio Street. Only his lawyer Pablo Argibay Molina and some relatives were able to enter. Parco, Argibay Molina said: Everything appears to be a suicide.

The autopsy was left in the hands of three forensic doctors. The president of the Forensic Corps of Entre Ríos, Jorge Miguez Iñarre, Oscar Chiapetti and Antonio Occhi. Without giving further details, doctors estimated that the autopsy would take about six hours. The family was already preparing his burial in Larroque, where Yabrán had a pantheon built in which his parents are already buried.


.DB

See also

One of the murderers of José Luis Cabezas was detained for a few hours: he had an arrest warrant that had expired.

How the documentary about the Cabezas Case, "The Photographer and the Postman", premiered by Netflix

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2023-05-19

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