The National Criminal and Correctional Chamber confirmed today the prosecution and preventive detention for the Chilean table tennis player accused of having sexually abused a 14-year-old teenager, who in 2017 practiced the same sport at the National Center for High Performance Deportivo (Cenard), and the judges considered in their arguments that if the defendant is released “there is a risk that he will harass the victim.”
The ruling of Chamber V of said Chamber rejected the appeal made by the defense of Juan Pablo Lamadrid Barraza (25), for which he was detained for the crime of “sexual abuse with carnal access”.
With this ruling -to which Télam had access-, the chambers confirmed the indictment issued on January 5 by the national Criminal and Correctional Judge 40 Paula Verónica González, with the aim that the defendant “does not obstruct the action of justice and prevent it from negatively influencing the future statements of the victim”.
«There is a risk that he will harass the victim in order to modify his story. In this regard, it must be taken into account that the victim made it known that she receives calls from private or hidden numbers and that they told her ‘be careful where you move, we know where you are and we are going to find you,’” judges Rodolfo Pociello Argerich argued. and Hernan Martin Lopez.
In turn, the magistrates considered a potential flight risk for Lamadrid Barraza because “his habitual residence, the seat of his family and his work would be in the Republic of Chile”, added to the fact that he was a fugitive for a month after after the arrest warrant was issued against him.
“It can be seen from the messages that he sent through the Instagram social network that he was aware of the filed complaint. Despite this, he did not appear in the country to be legal and went to his hometown, limiting himself to appointing a private defender to represent him in the case, “justified the judges.
In this sense, the chambers continued: “All of the above, prevents sustaining that the accused has a certain rooting”
On the other hand, Pociello Argerich and López considered that “the psychological assessment of the victim carried out by the Forensic Medical Corps determined that her story was organized, detailed, clear in its content, without incurring in contradictions and with an affective substratum of tone accordingly, of unpleasant characteristics».
“No discursive deviations or distorted interpretations, hallucinatory phenomenology and/or delusional pathological contents were observed, nor were confused expressions or failures in logical organization noted,” they synthesized.
Finally, the officials concluded: “For these purposes, it is taken into account that given the vulnerable situation of the victim, the danger of hindering the investigation cannot be neutralized by a less burdensome means than the precautionary detention of the accused. In this way, the measure in question is exhibited adjusted to the law and to the records of the case, in order to guarantee its subjection to the law and the investigation of the truth.
The act investigated was committed on December 14, 2017 and was subsequently denounced by the victim herself, who was 14 years old at the time.
Last August, the victim finally filed the complaint, with the intervention of the Specialized Prosecutor Unit for Violence against Women (UFEM) and in accordance with the complaint, represented by the lawyer Gustavo Romano Dufau, the national and international arrest warrant for the suspicious.
“It’s all a very tough process. Very hard to assimilate what happened. At the time, I did not have the tools or the ability to understand what had happened in my own words,” the victim herself recalled in statements to the press days after filing the criminal complaint.
The girl said that the following year she had to compete in a South American tournament and that she began to have “panic attacks” and felt “afraid” to see him again, for which time later she decided to stop practicing at Cenard and the National Team. Argentina, although at that time he did not reveal the reason why he did so.
Meanwhile, after the arrest of the athlete was ordered through the Interpol Red Notice, the agents of the Federal Investigation Division of Fugitives and Extraditions of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA) began the investigation and determined that the fugitive could be in Chile.
For this reason, an exchange of information took place with the Santiago Interpol National Central Office, who finally arrested Lamadrid Barraza on September 21.
After the arrest, the administrative and judicial procedures began, through official channels and through diplomatic channels, to advance in the extradition and transfer of the detainee to Argentina, which took place on December 22 with his arrival at the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, from the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
For his part, the defendant said when investigated by the Justice that he was a well-known person in the table tennis environment, while he denied having committed the abuse and assured that he did not know the reason why the complainant accused him of the rape. .
