José Luis Cabezas

José Luis Cabezas (born November 27, 1961 ; died January 25, 1997 in Pinamar , Buenos Aires Province , Argentina ) was an Argentine reporter and photographer who was murdered in connection with his professional activities .

prehistory

On August 25, 1995, the Argentine Minister of Economic Affairs, Domingo Cavallo , accused industrialist Alfredo Yabrán of being the leader of a “ mafia entangled in power ”. At that time, there were no public photos of Yabrán. He claimed that not even the Argentine secret service had one. He did not allow anyone to take a photo of him during interviews . It was not until February 16, 1996 that Cabezas, disguised as a tourist, managed to take photos of Yabrán and his wife on the “Marbella” beach in Pinamar, an expensive seaside resort on the Atlantic coast of the province of Buenos Aires. Three photos were published in Noticias on March 3, 1996 . Two days later, Cabezas' colleague Gabriel Michi published a report on Yabrán's business activities. Later on, Cabezas received several death threats.

Kidnapping and murder

Sequence of events

On January 25, 1997, Cabezas was back in Pinamar for the birthday party of the postal operator Oscar Andreani . When he left the celebration , he was kidnapped by initially unknown persons and taken to a mine in the hinterland of Pinamar. There he was killed by two bullets in the head and the body was burned in his rental car provided by Noticias .

Political background

The murder occurred during Eduardo Duhalde's tenure as governor of the province of Buenos Aires and was viewed as a possible criminal signal from the provincial police of Buenos Aires to the police leadership. Carlos Menem , Duhalde as a member of the Peronist party Justicialist Party , said he was "pelted with a corpse" was, and promised to investigate the matter. However, Menem was criticized for the nature of the investigation and his close contacts with Alfredo Yabrán, an industrialist suspected of inciting the murder; Menem has accepted a luxurious house in Buenos Aires from Yabrán as a gift.

Public reception

At the time of the murder, the Argentine press in general, and the Noticias newspaper in particular, had a good reputation for detecting cases of corruption . Cabezas' assassination was blamed on corrupt individuals and institutions as an attack on freedom of the press . The media , journalists' associations , human rights activists and numerous citizens demonstrated publicly for a quick clarification of the case. The slogan ¡No se olviden de Cabezas! ( German Do not forget Cabezas! ) became a symbol for the desire for justice and against the impunity of the perpetrators.

Criminal law processing

chronology

The first investigations in January 1997 were directed against Alfredo Yabrán, on the one hand, and against personnel of the provincial police of Buenos Aires and its head Pedro Klodzyk , who in Cabezas' article Maldita Policía (German: Verfluchte Police ) in August 1996 sharply criticized and corruption had been accused.

1997

• On February 11, Alfredo Yabrán went to the criminal court in Buenos Aires and denied the alleged incitement to murder Cabezas.

• On February 12, police arrested five members of the Pepita la Pistolera gang in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata on suspicion of being involved in the crime.

• On February 13, the politicians Carlos Corach and Alberto Kohan , party friends of President Carlos Menem, informed the investigating judge that the weapon of Pepita member Luis Martínez Maidana was the murder weapon.

• On March 7 said Francisco Caceres , former bodyguard Alfredo Yabráns that the latter had disturbed at the pictures taken by Cabezas photos.

• On March 2, a member of the Los Horneros gang met with Provincial Governor Eduardo Duhalde and confessed to being involved in the crime.

• On April 5, Duhalde gave this information to the investigating judge José Luis Macchi .

• On April 9 , the Horneros Horacio Braga and Héctor Retana and the police officer Gustavo Prellezo were arrested on suspicion.

• On April 10, another Hornero , Sergio González, was arrested and testified that Prellezo shot Cabezas. Yabrán testified before the Anti-Mafia Committee of the Argentine Congress.

• On April 11 , police officer Sergio Camaratta was arrested on suspicion of complicity.

• On April 19, Hornero José Luis Auge turned himself in to the police in the provincial capital of La Plata .

• On May 2, Braga stated that Camaratta had informed the perpetrators of Cabezas' departure from the birthday party on the day of the incident.

• On May 4 phone calls between Prellezo and Yabrán companies Bridees and Yabito were known.

• On May 7, Yabrán and Ríos testified for the first time as witnesses before investigators.

• On May 16, Cabezas' camera was discovered at the bottom of a canal.

• On May 30 , Yabrán's bodyguard Roberto Archuvi admitted that he had called Ríos at the time of the crime.

• On October 10, Yabrán testified as a suspect .

1998

• On May 15, Prellezo's wife testified that her husband had admitted to her that Yabrán was behind the crime. Yabrán's arrest warrant was issued the same day .

• On May 20, Yabrán's body was discovered on his estate near Gualeguaychú in the Entre Ríos province north of Buenos Aires. The autopsy revealed that he shot himself to avoid arrest.

1999

• On September 17 the rose prosecutor Analía Avalos charges against the surviving accused.

• On December 14, the Dolores Criminal Court opened the main trial .

2000

• On February 2 , all of the defendants except Gómez were sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance; Prellezo, Luna and Camaratta under aggravated conditions.

2002

• On December 23, the former police superintendent Alberto Gómez also received a life sentence.

2003

• On November 13, the Buenos Aires Province Court of Appeal reduced six of their sentences to limited terms; the judgment against Prellezo was upheld.

2004-2006

• Further sentences in the Cabezas case were reduced to house arrest or their execution ended. This was made possible by the fact that the pre-trial detention served is credited twice to the offender in Argentina.

2007

• On January 25 , the murder committed ten years earlier was commemorated in various locations around the country.

• On September 19 , the Buenos Aires Provincial Supreme Court revoked the reductions in prison sentences, except for the Gómez case. An appeal was lodged against this decision at the highest federal court.

• On December 14 returned Braga and Auge from prison of Gorina back after they had violated conditions of the house arrest; in Gorina they were housed in an open prison with temporary clearances.

2008

• On October 28 , Ríos' remaining sentence was suspended.

2009

• On December 9, the federal court upheld the life sentences against Auge and Braga.

2010

• On September 12, the criminal chamber of Dolores Prellezo approved the serving of the remaining sentence in his own household for health reasons.

• On October 1, the Dolores Criminal Chamber dismissed the prosecutor's complaint.

• On October 2 Prellezo left prison.

• On December 29 , the Supreme Court rejected Ríos' criminal defense motion for a retrial , thereby upholding the second-instance conviction to a 27-year prison sentence.

2011

• On June 7, the same court upheld Luna's and Camaratta's first instance sentences to life imprisonment by rejecting the nullity declarations requested by the defense .

• On June 27 , the Supreme Court dismissed Prellezo's request for release , leaving the sentence to remain under house arrest.

Summary of the judgments

The individual criminal proceedings against the defendants in the Cabezas case ended, in some cases after an appeal , as follows:

Surname	First instance	Final judgments	Remarks
José Luis eye	Life imprisonment	Verdict confirmed	released from prison in 2004
Horacio Anselmo Braga	Life imprisonment	Verdict confirmed	released on January 25, 2007
Sergio Aníbal Camaratta	Life imprisonment	25 years imprisonment	on bail on probation at large
Alberto Gomez	Life imprisonment	Legal force in the first instance	Police Commissioner in Pinamar; convicted of keeping the crime scene clear
Sergio Gustavo González	Life imprisonment	20 years imprisonment	released in February 2006
Aníbal Luna	Life imprisonment	24 years imprisonment	released from custody
Gustavo Prellezo	Life imprisonment	Verdict confirmed	Sentence was 23 September 2010 for health reasons in house arrest transformed
Miguel Retana	Life imprisonment	Legal force in the first instance	sole confessed defendant; Died of AIDS in prison in 2001
Gregorio Ríos	Life imprisonment	27 years imprisonment	convicted of incitement to murder; Sentence converted to house arrest
Alfredo Yabrán	Death proceedings suspended	no judgement	committed suicide in his Gualeguaychú estate on May 20, 1998 after his arrest warrant was issued

As of September 2015, none of the convicts was in prison.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Día del Reportero Gráfico - No se olviden de Cabezas. Efemérides Argentina , undated
2. ↑ Mauricio Caminos: La foto que le costó la vida a Cabezas . La Nación from January 25, 2012
3. ↑ Afirman que una Menem recibió mansión de Yabrán. ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Los Andes 
4. ↑ ¿Cuándo murió José Luis Cabezas? Provecto Impunidad of January 25, 2010
5. ↑ ^{a b c} A 15 años del asesinato: Los principales hechos del “Caso Cabezas” . ( Memento of March 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) télam , January 25, 2012.
6. ↑ Las 50 Mejores fotografías de Cabezas (17º Aniversario) . Noticias of January 23, 2014
7. ^ Gustavo Carabajal: Prisión domiciliaria para Gustavo Prellezo . La Nación, September 23, 2010
8. ↑ Uno de los asesinos de Cabezas trabaja de seguridad en Pinamar. ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Los Andes, January 9, 2011 
9. ↑ Oscar Balmaceda: Confesó uno de los detenidos en el caso Cabezas . La Nación, undated online version
10. ^ Court reduces sentences against journalists' killers. International Freedom of Expression Exchange , November 18, 2003

Web links

• José Luis Cabezas Foundation ( Spanish ). Recording in the Internet Archive from May 16, 2014