translated from Spanish: With judge’s doubt they requalify as femicide death of young model

More than two years have passed since Silvana Garrido, a 25-year-old model, died after falling from the balcony of a building in Santiago, in a case that police described as suicide. However, in recent days the investigation took a turn after the Prosecutor’s Office reclassified it as a femicide and yesterday formalized his partner for his alleged responsibility.” The accused, with the clear intention of killing her, took her and threw her from the balcony of the 23rd floor, while she fought to prevent it,” prosecutor Paula Rojas said at the hearing. The persecutor based her thesis on a new expert report that, she says, would show injuries to the victim that are “not necessarily” attributable to the fall, but could be compatible with a fight in which the woman clung to the railing before being thrown, a version that her family accuses. The new theory suggests that the attack would have occurred “out of jealousy”, because close to Silvana claim that that day she would end the relationship. From the defense of the defendant deny his participation. His lawyer Ramón Sepúlveda pointed out that “there are no grounds” for accusing the femicide, since he believes that the new expert report does not link his representative with the fact.” An attempt is being made to charge a crime to reassure the family or to close a flawed investigation,” he said. Similar doubts were expressed by Judge Freddy Cubillos, who in his ruling argued that although the records open the option of a possible partition of third parties, “there is no precedent that justifies the existence of the formalized crimes.” The magistrate said he was struck by the fact that, considering the number of neighbors in a building, there are no witnesses who saw the accused throwing the victim, because if the accusing thesis was effective, “she should reasonably have screamed or asked for help” when she was fighting, “and nothing of it exists,” he added. On the contrary, in his ruling he found that a neighbor heard a dialogue that, he believes, would fit with a sequence in which the victim threatened to commit suicide. And he said she had alcohol in her blood. On the basis of the background, he denied the request for pretrial detention, although he decreed that the accused should be arraigo nationally. The investigation will last 4 months. The Prosecutor’s Office will appeal.

Original source in Spanish