Football player Junior Benitez He will begin to be tried on March 19 as accused of four episodes of gender violence committed between 2021 and 2023 against his ex-partner, Anabelia Ayala (29), and members of the family of the woman, who committed suicide on New Year’s Day in her home in the Buenos Aires town of Burzaco, judicial sources reported.
In parallel to this process, the former Boca and Lanús player continues to be investigated in a case for “investigations of causes of death” that are being instructed by Esteban Echeverría’s Justice, after Ayala’s father reported that Benítez induced his daughter to commit suicide. and that he even had a video call with her when the woman hanged herself in the early hours of January 1.
“I ask for justice so that my daughter can rest in peace. It is not just Junior Benítez who is responsible for the fact that my daughter is dead today, there are other relatives who are also responsible and should be imprisoned. Now he is going to be prosecuted for other acts of gender violence repeated claims of a psychopath,” said Juan Carlos Ayala in dialogue with Télam.
The former player, who has been detained since January 12 in the Lomas de Zamora prison, after violating the conditions of the house arrest that had been granted to him in this case, will sit in the dock at 8:30 on the 19th. March to be put on trial before Correctional Court 8 of Lomas de Zamora, led by Judge Manuel Barreiro.
Benítez is being prosecuted for the crimes of “coercion aggravated by the use of a weapon, damages, threats, disobedience and possession of a weapon without proper legal authorization”, all in material competition with each other.
Although on November 24 the trial prosecutor Mariana Monti had proposed that the footballer be subjected to an abbreviated trial and agree to serve a single sentence of 3 years and 8 months in prison for effective compliance, this was finally rejected and Benítez will face a oral debate, in which prosecutor Hugo Carrión will participate as prosecutor.
In principle, 13 witnesses were summoned for the trial, 11 of them summoned jointly by the prosecution and the defense.
The acts of violence that Benítez is accused of are four, which occurred between January 2021 and May 2023, in addition to the possession of a weapon without proper legal documentation.
According to the tax accusation, to which Télam had access, the first of them happened on January 16, 2021, in the house located at 600 Rodríguez Peña, in the Almirante Brown district, where Benítez destroyed the files of a notebook. from his ex-partner’s family.
The next day, Benítez allegedly broke into the same home with a firearm and, in a context of gender violence, threatened Juan Carlos Ayala, his partner’s father, so that he would not intervene in the problems that existed between him and his wife. daughter, after which he set fire to various items belonging to Anabelia at the door of the home.
Another of the events that he is accused of occurred on February 28, 2022, when, according to the prosecution, the footballer disobeyed the prohibition of approaching within 300 meters of his father-in-law and his family group and threatened him: “You reported me, “You made me go to jail, I’m going to kill you, you’re out of luck.”
In that same incident, he also threatened to kill another family member.
Meanwhile, on March 18, 2022, and always at the same address, Benítez would have once again disobeyed the prohibition on approaching his partner’s house, whom he threatened with a knife to make him open the door, although due to the refusal of The woman damaged the four tires of her father’s Peugeot 406 car.
Finally, the Public Ministry accuses Benítez of having had a Bersa 9 millimeter caliber pistol in his home in Esteban Echeverría’s party whose possession permit had expired.
Within the framework of all these cases, the Justice ordered Benítez’s house arrest, revoked on January 12 for failing to comply to go out to look for his ex-partner days before he committed suicide.
According to the investigation, Benítez would have gone to look for Anabelia on December 30 at the door of the house, where he left her on the 31st, hours before her suicide, which occurred in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
Although the autopsy operation carried out on the young woman’s body revealed that she died as a result of “asphyxiation due to extrinsic compression of the neck”, compatible with suicide, her father requested that Benítez be investigated for having threatened his daughter with killing his entire family if he did not commit suicide.
In addition, he said that Benítez controlled, through a video call in real time, that Anabelia took her life.
In order to prove this point, Ayala presented to the judicial authorities the tablet that Anabelia used to communicate daily with the soccer player and a cell phone that the woman used.
“When my daughter was dying, Benítez looked at him through a tablet,” Ayala told Télam before the oral trial, after which he asserted: “They killed my daughter little by little. I just want justice to be done so that “The same thing doesn’t happen to another woman.”
“We want him to be convicted for the reasons in which he is going to trial and for him to remain imprisoned until the next trial. Everyone knew that my daughter was going through a bad time and I couldn’t save her,” he concluded.
(Line 144: attention, containment and advice in situations of gender violence. By WhatsApp: +5491127716463).
Source: Ambito
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