Carlos Aguilera can’t forget his son Santiago was missing from Villa Dolores for four daysa place so small that it seemed impossible not to find it. He also cannot forgive the fact that, according to his statement, federal prosecutor Enrique Senestrari had the opportunity to save him alive and did not use it.
The Aguilera family’s allegations against Senestrari are convincing. Carlos claims that when police identified the kidnapper 24 hours after the kidnapping, the prosecutor refused to question him immediately, even though the law authorized him to do so.
Kidnapping and crimes of Santiago Aguilera: Prosecutor Hairabedián ordered four new arrests
“The police said to him: ‘Dr. Senestrari, we have you, you have to talk, we have to take over the interrogation’.” And the law says so. They should have known all this and didn’t. Aside from that: He stated in the file that he was to be interrogated five days later and that my son was cruelly tortured during those days. and they killed him,” he denounced.
Santiago was born with a severe kidney problem. He underwent ten surgeries, had to undergo dialysis until his mother donated a kidney, and was dependent on medication that he couldn’t stop. Carlos assures that he explained this situation to the prosecutor, but that Senestrari insisted that the young man went out “with some girl, with some girlfriend” or that he bought the drugs in a pharmacy in Villa Dolores.
“We explained to him that these were medicines that were not available in any pharmacy. Senestrari missed the opportunity to rescue my son alive,” he said.
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One of the most painful episodes for the family was recorded in the verdict of the Federal Court of Justice 3, said Aguilera. According to commissioners of the anti-kidnapping brigade Prosecutor Senestrari “showed compassion for the criminal” and brought cakes to the kidnapper’s cell.
“This is what the commissioners of the brigade say. This was discussed at the hearing,” said Carlos Aguilera, who attributed the prosecutor’s stance to the “very deep guarantee that he exercises.”
Criminal complaint and indictment
The Aguilera family filed a criminal complaint against Senestrari. After several months of insistence, the prosecutor was indicted. The case was left to a Bel Ville-based prosecutor, Miguel Carmona, and later a national prosecutor, Pablo Turano, intervened.
“After 15, 20 days of working, he realized there was enough money to charge him and he filed charges against him,” Carlos said.
“He did not act with negligence or frivolity, but with contempt”: they denounce important omissions by prosecutor Senestrari in the Aguilera case
The family’s lawyer, Alejandro Dragotto, told Cadena 3 that Senestrari’s actions involved “serious negligence” and that the seriousness of the incident was underestimated from the beginning. “It was the prosecutor’s duty to inform the defendant that he could have his sentence reduced if he cooperated. The goal was to get Santiago back alive and that was not done,” the lawyer said.
Dragotto assured that the prosecutor initially viewed the incident as a “prank between boys” and that the failure to take urgent action thwarted “an important chance” of finding the victim alive.
The new prisoners
This Monday, December 15, Federal Prosecutor Maximiliano Hairabedián ordered the arrest of four people for the extortion kidnapping and crime of Santiago Aguilera that took place in Traslasierra in August 2022. The procedures were carried out in Villa Dolores, Las Tapias and Alpa Corral with personnel from the Federal Police and the Córdoba Police.
The detainees are Pedro Ezequiel González, Marcos Antonio Maldonado, Jorge Alejandro Altamirano and Lucas Emanuel Rejas. They join four other defendants and two people already convicted: Walter Gil, who was sentenced to life in prison as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and murder, and Julio César Ramírez, whose 12-year sentence could be dropped after it was revealed that the evidence against him would be false.
According to Dragotto, the four recently arrested people were identified by the anti-kidnapping department in September 2023, but Senestrari did not allow them to be arrested. “Two years were lost collecting evidence, their investigation was terrible,” said the lawyer.
Santiago Aguilera was kidnapped on August 16, 2022 and his body was found five days later in an open field in Villa Dolores. He had been cruelly tortured. All detainees are accused of “aggravated extortionate kidnapping followed by intentional homicide,” an extremely serious crime that is punishable by prison sentences of more than 25 years.
New revelation about false evidence
Ten days ago, on December 5, prosecutor Hairabedián received the testimony of a file clerk who confessed that the connection attributed to Ramírez to Santiago Aguilera’s Gmail account “was neither established by this defendant nor from his home.”
The employee disclosed that the access to the victim’s account was “an investigative action by the investigating public prosecutor’s office itself,” which was in charge of Senestrari and worked from the Hotel Villa Dolores, where the investigators were staying.
“Four days ago, an employee of Dr.
Ramírez’s public defender, Jorge Perano, called for his immediate release despite the conviction. The Federal Estuary Court 3 must now decide on the application.
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