It was one friendship that seemed unbreakable. What’s more, they treated each other like brothers, although the same blood did not run through their veins.. But that bond was destroyed in a macabre way. On the night of April 7, Jonathan Rabinovici treacherously murdered his friend Facundo Bargiela with a shot to the back of the head, inside a vehicle in Bariloche. Two accomplices collaborated in the execution of the criminal plan. The three left numerous loose ends along the way and within a few days they were behind bars.
This Thursday, the trial court, composed of judge Romina Martini and her peers Sergio Pichetto and Marcelo Álvarez Melinguer cHe sentenced Rabinovici to 20 years in prison as the perpetrator of the homicide aggravated by the use of a firearm of Bargiela, the former Argentine Jiu Jitsu champion, municipal employee, and father of two children. He was 36 years old.
Furthermore, land they imposed 15 years in prison on Julio Argentino Torres as a necessary participant in the homicide and 10 years in prison on Santiago Figueroa for his secondary participation.
On May 20, Rabinovici, 31, had admitted having been the shooter. He also admitted to having been the ideologue of the crime. Torres and Figueora also accepted their guilt. But they did not declare. This Thursday they did not give their version of what happened either..
ANDThe case was resolved based on a partial agreement that the accused did with the chief prosecutor Betiana Cendón and the prosecutor of the case César Lanfranchi, with the consent of the official defenders of the accused.
Everything was closed quickly. lBargiela’s family gave their support to that agreement. Thus, the accused avoided a trial before a popular jury accused of a homicide aggravated by the premeditated collaboration of two or more people, committed with treachery and with a firearm. The Penal Code punishes these crimes with life imprisonment.
A qualification change that excluded life
With partial agreement, The prosecution had to change the classification and attributed homicide aggravated by the use of a firearm to the defendants. It excluded treachery and the premeditated collaboration of two or more people. In this way, a final conviction was guaranteed in less than two months and closure of a case that in the first days seemed complex.
This Thursday neither the prosecution nor the defense offered evidence at the caesura trial hearing. They went straight to the allegations.
Cendón explained that The criminal scale for homicide aggravated by the use of a firearm starts at 10 years and 8 months in prison and rises to 33 years and 3 months in prison.. But he clarified that each case must be measured and evaluated to achieve a fair sentence.
Said It was “a crime conceived and planned by Jonathan Rabinovici, partner and friend of the victim and, according to the family, even brothers.” He stated that, because of that trust, he deceived Bargiela on the night of April 7, when they told him that they were picking him up in a vehicle in the center of Bariloche to go pick up a car at the airport in this city. The victim confidently got into the Chevrolet Onix. Minutes later, at another point on the route, Rabinovici and Torres got on and sat in the back seat.
Cendón recalled that Before, Rabinovici and Torres toured the place where Bargiela would be executed. He said that the accused “knew what he was going for,” but recalled that the weapon was not found.
He maintained that Rabinovici had complete control over the event. “He is the one who sought collaboration, he is the one who devised the plan, the one who went to the place and he is the one who killed Bargiela,” he summarized. “Beyond the fact that we had to move away from the classification of treachery, It was still a shot fired from behind. The shot was fired in the back of the head,” he indicated.
The roles of accomplices
“With respect to Torres had an essential collaboration, he was there at the time of the event, but he also participated in the previous circumstances, he even helped Rabinovici make the decision.”Cendón stated. He said that after committing the crime, Torres tried to eliminate evidence. In fact, he took the Chevrolet Onix to be washed “seeking impunity with the act.” Torres worked as a remisero. He is a former employee of the Rio Negro Police.
“With respect to Santiago Figueroa, although he provided a secondary collaboration, complied with a request from Rabinovici (who is his brother-in-law). He accompanied him, went to look for the victim, “He took him to the place,” explained the prosecutor.
He said that Figueroa’s participation “although it was not essential or decisive, nor did he have full control over the event, it is still analyzed with a very complex disvalue. At 19 years old he could have said no.”
Possible motives for the crime
Cendón informed the judges that Another file emerged from the homicide investigation. “An illicit association of which Rabonivici, possibly also Torres, is inevitably a part, is being specifically investigated,” he warned.
“But also people who are still charged in this file like (Carlos Gustavo) Bracamonte and that in some way the victim Bargiela and other people would surely have participated“, revealed.
There, sand investigate alleged illegal real estate deals. He said that this file became a complex case, which will allow you more time to investigate.
“This illicit activity, which has been accredited with the rest of the investigation of this homicide, unfailingly “It is an essential element to analyze this previous conduct of Rabinovici,” he warned.
“Carry out a series of illicit activities that obey an illicit association whose fundamental interest has to do with the patrimonial content and that ended up being the motive for this homicide,” he mentioned.
Also, he confided that Rabinovici declared at the tax headquarters that There was “a betrayal carried out by Bargiela where his family was at risk.” Cendón said that “this element could have been what led him, beyond the patrimonial issues, to kill Bargiela.”but clarified that it is “an issue that has not been reliably accredited.”
“Could (Rabinovici) have chosen to turn to the authorities to report this circumstance and ask for protection? Yes. And yet he didn’t do it. “He made the decision, asked Torres and Figueroa for help, and killed Bargiela,” the prosecutor stated.
The decision
The official defenders Blanca Alderete, who assisted Rabinovici, Paola del Río, to Figueroa, and Natalia Araya, to Torres, They raised no objections and adhered to the sentences requested by the prosecution of 20 years in prison for Rabinovici, 15 for Torres and Figueroa, 10. They explained that it was part of the agreement reached.
After a fourth intermission, Martini reported that the sentence was unanimous. He cited the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of each defendant. And he reported that the amount of the sentences were as the prosecutor’s office had requested.
As the accused, the prosecution and the defense waived the procedural deadlines, The sentence was final. The three have already been detained since last April in the Bariloche prison.
“We came for Justice”
“We came for justice and we have had it and I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Verónica Arratia, Bargiela’s mother, said before ending the hearing.
“I thank the prosecutor’s team for taking the case on their shoulders to be able to have this conviction,” he said. “My son is no longer here, we are going to miss him, in the name of my grandchildren I thank you that there is justice for his father,” he said.
“My Facu was a person who believed in friendship, he offered his heartfelt. “They took a little piece of my soul and my heart,” she said, her voice trembling with pain.
“I am grateful that they have resolved this case in such a short period of time.” Because I know that the investigations are arduous and your work is arduous, I thank you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of myself and my family,” Arratia added.
