Marcos Esteban Bazán, the owner of the house where Anahí Benitez is believed to have been held, drugged, raped and strangled in 2017, was now sentenced to life imprisonment for the teenage girl’s femicide. The Oral Court on Criminal Law (TOC) 7 of Lomas de Zamora, which last week had already announced its conviction in a unanimous ruling, today released the judgment in which it sentenced Bazán (37) to the maximum penalty of the Penal Code.
The crimes for which Bazán was convicted are “illegal deprivation of aggravated liberty, triple aggravated murder by alevosía, criminous cause and by mediating gender-based violence” and also as a necessary participant in “sexual abuse aggravated by carnal access”.
It was sung that that court of the lomas judicial mafia was going to convict Marcos Bazán, so as not to recognize the role of the investigation…. They have the culprit, Villalba, whose semen was found in Anahí’s body…. but they put the case up against Bazan and don’t get off—raul kollmann (@tunykollmann)
May 27, 2020
Last week, when the conviction was known, Bazán’s defense held, as he did throughout the judicial process, that the man is innocent and that the case was armed from the outset, as they said that there is no evidence against him or anything linking him to the other defendant in the case, Marcelo Villalba.
The conviction for Marcos Bazan only shows the pact of silence between justice, police and shift politiciansNo justice nor truth for Anahi Benitez with the condemnation of a parsley. Real investigation into the trafficking and corruption network policial@MSTargentina pic.twitter.com/zRRjddoy8P—Andrea Lanzette (@Andrelanzette)
May 27, 2020
The victim’s family, while he held the conviction for the crime, called for further investigation. From various human rights organizations and even friends of the victim they sowed doubts about Bazán’s true responsibility in the femicide of Anahí and called for the investigation to continue to find the rest of those involved. Marcelo Villalba had also been charged in the case, as traces of his DNA were found on the victim’s body, but the man was not tried as he was proven to suffer from psychiatric problems.
