He was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for dragging and killing a dog with his 4×4

The sentence was set after the suspension of the oral and public trial scheduled for last Thursday, in which the fact had to be analyzed, based on an agreement between the accused, Adrián Guillermo Rodríguez, and the prosecutor of the case, Roberto Miglio. Rodríguez had been charged with violation of Law 14,346, which punishes with up to one year in prison anyone who commits “ill-treatment or acts of cruelty to animals”, for his responsibility in the death of “Rubio”, a dog that lived in a service station at the entrance to Mar del Tuyú and was cared for by workers and customers of the place. To that fact, a complaint was accumulated in the case for threats against a woman who demonstrated to repudiate the murder of the animal. According to lawyer Mauricio Trigo, a plaintiff in the case, the abbreviated trial agreement set a sentence of “1 year and 6 months in prison of conditional execution,” which is not final. The sources said that “the confiscation of the vehicle used to commit the crime” was also ordered, which Trigo considered “perhaps the most important part in this specific case, something that was sustained from the very beginning of the case, not because of an economic issue but because of the hierarchy of values and rights at stake.” The agreement also established different rules of conduct that the accused must comply with, as well as the costs of the process on his part. In addition, “other animals are recognized as sentient beings and with their own rights,” according to the lawyer, who said that “Rubio” was mentioned 35 times in the ruling. After learning of the agreement, Trigo stressed that “until not long ago the criminal cases in which acts of violence against other Animals are investigated” such as “ill-treatment and cruelty” concluded “mostly with obligations to deliver balanced food” or “some hours of unpaid tasks in favor of the State and some other rules of conduct.” The confiscation in this particular case and by the characteristics of the good, marks on the one hand, that the life of ‘a simple dog’ is worth more than the right of property of any human; and on the other hand, it raises the conditions for measuring other cases, making it no longer so easy or simple to agree between four walls to deliver two bags of food so as not to receive a sentence,” he said. In that sense, he said: “We have only gone through one more part of the criminal process. No more, no less. But without that criminal process there would be no name of Rubio in a case. Without such a criminal process there would be no sentence. Without that criminal process there would be no prison sentence.” According to the complaint against him, the man tied the animal to his 4 x 4 truck on the night of August 13, 2019, and dragged it hundreds of meters along a neighborhood road, behind Route 11, until he died from the injuries suffered. The trial against the driver for this fact had initially been scheduled for April 13, in the Correctional Court 2 of Dolores, in charge of Jorge Martínez Mollard, but, after the resignation of the defense lawyer, a new lawyer asked at the last minute for more time to internalize about the case. Based on this request, the new date of the trial was set at May 19 and 20, with the intervention of about 40 witnesses, but the debate did not materialize either, in view of the agreement reached between the prosecution and the defense. The murder of “Rubio” aroused a strong repudiation in the local community, and the driver was even declared “persona non grata”, by the Deliberative Council of the Party of La Costa.In November 2019, three months after the fact, residents of Mar del Tuyú also inaugurated a statue to remember the animal, with a plaque that said: “In memory of Rubio, who, with his sad departure, united the world by becoming a pillar against animal abuse.” 

Original source in Spanish

Related Posts

Add Comment