On July 8, the Santa Cruz Federal Appeals Court delivered its final sentence in the trial for the 2017 sinking of the ARA San Juan submarine. Ex-captain Claudio Villamide was handed a suspended prison sentence of three years, while former rear-admiral Luis López Mazzeo and ex-captains Héctor Alonso and Hugo Correa were all acquitted.
In an exclusive interview with the Noticias Argentinas news agency, Valeria Carreras, one of the defence lawyers for the families of the 44 crew-members who died in the tragedy, described those sentencing decisions as “offensive” and assured that the verdict will be appealed.
How did you experience the whole trial prior to the sentence?
I’ve been on this case for 104 months. My relationship with those I represented, a total of 35, is one of very deep affection. So I have two sentiments: the expectation of obtaining justice for what it means in itself – not only in legal terms but also the moral reparation of saying: ‘We did it, the guilty are in jail’ – and then the absolutely professional aspect, which makes me see the result and the sentence with legalistic eyes.
I have to tell you that my first reaction was disappointment because together with them [the plaintiffs], I had been expecting prison sentences to be served for all four indicted standing accused by us.
How did the families take the sentence?
I was up until 3.20am the same day of the verdict talking to them, one by one, and the unease ran through all the plaintiffs. That is the first X-ray. Then another reading will come along when, as from August 21, we will see what led the judges to arrive at that resolution.
What do you think the judges took into account when convicting only one of the accused?
We do not know for sure, we want to know what they saw differently, what motivated them and what the dissenting judge was missing to prevent Villamide’s conviction from being unanimous.
Then we have to evaluate the arguments we are going to use to appeal this verdict which must be appealed in two fundamental directions: firstly, not to leave aside the acquitted but to obtain their conviction via a cassation court, and secondly, to increase the sentences and have them served in prison because that did not happen with the one conviction they delivered – therein lies the unease and the slap in the face.
"A suspended sentence of three years for 44 lives lost is offensive."
Of course, because the only conviction was a suspended sentence of three years...
Exactly, not to be served in prison so a suspended sentence of three years for 44 lives lost is offensive. So we have hence been evaluating, ever since we took up this trial with my colleague Lorena Arias, whether to submit a bill in Congress.
We have realised that aggravated criminal negligence, as in this case, carries a maximum sentence of five years applying to 44 dead as much as to, say, five. So we are thinking of drafting a bill to graduate the punishment for criminal negligence according to the number of victims which we will present after [full reading of] the sentence to Congress Speaker Martín Menem.
I understand that you are not doing that via any caucus but as an independent initiative.
Exactly. We have no kind of representation with any deputy so we want to deliver it [the bill] at the door. It is understood as an amendment of the Criminal Code which will go through because even obtaining the maximum sentence would have been unjust.
At the same time you see a positive aspect in this case, over and above not agreeing with the verdict.
Yes, because this case will set a precedent because if you analyse it, they were not only found guilty of malfeasance but also of the crime of negligence and that means that those deaths were avoidable.
By achieving that, you completely turn on its head the whole paradigm of this case for almost nine years. Because it was not a perfect storm, the fault of the crew, as [then-defence minister Oscar] Aguad said in 2019 on Navy Day, May 17, blaming it on the inexperience of the crew members – instead they were exposed to conditions of risk at a given time in a given place.
The other historic milestone, if I may be allowed to say so, is that for the first time civilian courts convicted senior Argentine naval officers for the deaths. This is what hurts most, weighs the heaviest and is the most symbolic of this case, which can be perfected and falls short.
It definitely points to the poor condition of naval vessels and, in the final analysis, their malfunctioning.
There is not even a ship to go to the Malvinas [Islands] nor aircraft nor a submarine, nothing. Due to the degradation of Armed Forces materiél and also their pay with the same budget cuts they suffer year after year, especially under this administration.
What are the questions which you and your colleague Arias consider to have weighed fundamentally for the three acquittals?
Not having read the grounds of the ruling, we are completely in the dark. We suspect and believe that the acquittal of López Mazzeo, who was a rear-admiral, is linked to his having a direct line of responsibility upwards to the then commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, [former president] Mauricio Macri, and the Navy chief-of-staff Marcelo Rur. We believe that they wanted to cut the chain of command upward but I cannot be sure of that because I have not read [the grounds for the ruling]. We maintain that Villamide and López Mazzeo have the same responsibility with the same evidence as the two highest-ranking officers.
Lastly, Valeria, what happened to the issue of the alleged espionage on the families of the crew members?
Last April 26 the deadline for intervening in the case of Macri’s acquittal by appealing to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. And do you know who presented the only lawsuit? We did. We presented it with a numbered petition and that is super-important because you do not know the requisites asked to be able to be considered in the Inter-American Court and we complied with them.
This is a lawsuit by people without means, not even for photocopies, forensic experts, Internet, expenses, hotels, nothing. So a handful of families managing to reach an international level has far more merit. And apart from that, anybody reading that file, that case of illegal espionage about tasks of intelligence being performed during an entire year on some women because they were dangers for Macri’s physical integrity or the country’s domestic safety does not resist the slightest analysis.
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by Laura Impellizzeri, Noticias Argentinas
