As reported in December The Left Daily two hitmen (presumably under the orders of their boss, the forestry businessman Roland Rocco) were convicted of the crime against the young Mapuche Elias Garay (29) and for the attempted murder of another 23-year-old youth, Gonzalo Cabrera. Finally this Wednesday the Criminal Court of Bariloche announced the sentences applied to those convicted.
The judges Gregory Joos, Bernardo Campana y marco burgos they sentenced that Diego Ravasio (46) must serve a sentence of twelve years in prisonfinding him guilty of the crime of “aggravated homicide by the use of a firearm” y “attempted murder” to the detriment of Garay and Cabrera, respectively. while to Martin Cruz Fielberg (50) they gave him five years by “culpable homicide and attempted homicide”.
The events occurred on Sunday, November 21, 2021, when Ravasio and Cruz Feilberg entered, with permission from the Río Negro Police, to the territory recovered by the Lof Quemquemtrew in Cuesta del Ternero, near El Bolsón. There they violently confronted members of the community and discharged at a short distance several shots with a 22 caliber carbine. One bullet pierced Garay’s thorax, who died a few minutes later, and another two hit Cabrera’s abdomen, who had to be admitted and operated urgently. The trial against Ravasio and Cruz Feilberg began on November 17 of last year.
In other notes from The Left Daily A large part of what happened that Sunday in November was detailed in the Lof Quemquemtrew. In addition to the valuable testimonies of the Mapuche community, in their investigative statements the murderers themselves gave various indications of how and why they came to commit the crime.
This Wednesday, after knowing the sentences, the lawyer Luciano Magaldidefender of Feilberg Cruz, asked that his client be benefited with the conditional freedombut the Court denied it. Thus, Garay’s murderers will remain housed in the Viedma Prison pending the appeal of their defenses before the Court of Appeal.
During the trial it was possible to demonstrate how the accused colluded with the businessman Roccowho had openly expressed his hatred towards the Mapuche community and he publicly declared that he was going to “free himself” from the lof “in some way”, by the judicial side or by his own hand. Thus, it became clear that the events that led to Garay’s death and Cabrera’s serious injuries they were not improvised.
Both the Prosecutor’s Office, in charge of Francisco Arrien y Betiana Cendónsuch as the lawsuit (Garay’s family and Cabrera himself) sponsored by the lawyers Andrea Reilly y Ezequiel Palavecino, had asked that Rocco’s hit men be found guilty. In the case of the complainants, they had requested twelve years in prison for both of them, not only for Ravasio.
The criminal attack against Lof Quemquemtrew is part of the long list of episodes framed in the hate campaign, criminalization and state repression suffered by the Mapuche communities in Black river, chubut y Neuquen. campaign motorized by the entrepreneurial thirst that seeks to keep the territories in pursuit of the extractivist looting.
In December, after learning of the conviction, Garay’s mother, Juana CayicolHe spoke to the press. “I can’t say whether or not I agree with what we’ve heard so far at trial. As I will be the day that what happened is clarified well and the guilty pay “affirmed the Mapuche woman in clear reference to the criminal network that exceeds Ravasio and Feilberg Cruz.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
