Preventive prison for a Chilean table tennis player accused of raping an Argentine athlete

The Chilean table tennis player Juan Pablo Lamadrid Barraza, who was a fugitive from the Argentine Justice until he was arrested on September 21, 2022 by Interpol in the trans-Andean capital, was prosecuted with preventive detention, accused of having sexually abused an athlete Argentina who was 14 years old when the attack occurred, in 2017, at the National Center for High Performance Sports (Cenard), in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Núñez.

The act under investigation was committed on December 14 and was subsequently denounced by the victim herself, Cielo Rotryng Álvarez, who was 14 years old at the time.

According to the 15-page ruling, to which Télam agreed, at the time of the abuse, a series of national and international table tennis competitions for adults and minors were taking place at the Cenard.

In these circumstances, the adolescent was approached by Lamadrid Barraza, who, according to the summary, “held tight” y “forced her to enter a machine room”, where he abused her, after which he withdrew from the place.

Last August, the victim finally filed the complaint, with the intervention of the Specialized Fiscal Unit for Violence against Women (UFEM). In accordance with the complaint, represented by the lawyer Gustavo Romano Dufau, the national and international arrest warrant for the aforementioned was issued.

“It is 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 player said that the following year she had to compete in a South American tournament and that she began to have “panic attacks” y I was afraid” to see Lamadrid Barraza again, for which, some time later, he decided to stop practicing at Cenard and in the Argentine National Team, 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, there was an exchange of information with the Santiago National Central Office of Interpol, who finally arrested Lamadrid Barraza on September 21.

After the capture, 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, when the detainee arrived to the Jorge Newbery Metropolitan Airport.

In his inquiry, The defendant said that he was a well-known person in the table tennis environment, denied having committed the abuse and stated that he did not know the reason why the complainant accused him of the rape.

As for what happened on December 14, 2017, he pointed out that his team had strict rules to stay in a group, watch their teammates’ games, and that they could not roam the Cenard grounds.

Nevertheless, Judge González assessed the evidence incorporated into the investigation, including testimonial statements from other competitors, psychological expert reports and records from the Table Tennis Federations of Argentina and Chile, which, contrary to what the defendant said, reported the presence of the aggressor and the victim at the Cenard on the day accused of the rape.

The magistrate concluded that the evidence gathered during the investigation “has confirmed the occurrence of the facts under investigation.”

“The testimony of the victim – which he reiterated in identical terms before various interlocutors and at different times – constitutes a contribution of immense costly value and especially valuable for the purpose of having the materiality of the conduct described accredited.”, assured the judge in her resolution.

And in that sense he abounded: “The testimony is complemented in a coherent way with other evidence that, assessed as a whole, strengthens the credibility of the young woman’s version and prevents it from being distorted by the plea of ​​innocence made by the accused.”

THE NATION