The murder of eight Argentine rugby players that moved even the Pope

Victim, Fernando Baez SosaLike many teenagers his age, he enjoyed his vacation at Villa Gesell, a small tourist town in the province of Buenos Aires with beautiful beaches. The only thing that crossed his mind was the idea of ​​taking the same course at the Law School in the Argentine capital.

The reason for your murder? Nobody makes sense. Its origin may be the exchange of explosions. A light brushing or pushing amongst the many things that happen at a disco like La Briche full of teenagers, some down to alcohol or other substances. Worse still, members of that ruthless pack playing on a rugby team took the law into their own hands when they saw their target eating ice cream alone in the street.

Náutico Arsenal Zárate players

Villa Gesell, like many other towns that use Mar de Plata as the nerve center of their vacation during the southern summer months, fills up with tourists from Buenos Aires in December and January. As fate would have it, a group of rugby players on that fateful night An amateur team called Náutico Arsenal Zárate, a country club 90 kilometers north of Buenos Aires with a boy who has just graduated from a Marianistas school in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Caballito. At first it was said that the aggressive group consisted of 10 young people aged between 18 and 21. both were eventually released and escaped trial.

When the fighting started, the club’s security members quite openly invited the rebels out. They are used to this kind of thing. A security camera shows the victim leaving the building around 4:32 a.m. and, shortly after, the attackers passed through the emergency room after being kicked out of the shed. They were in a group, and they were the closest thing to some kind of nervous herd.

While Fernando Báez was eating ice cream, they kicked and punched without any provocation. while hurling racial insults at him. According to the recorded video footage and the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Matías Benicelli was the most active. A violent kick to the head of the victim, already kneeling on the ground, could have been the cause of the fatal outcome.

no one could help him

Nobody helped Fernando Báez, or rather nobody could. His friends were attacked by other members of the group, while other passers-by fled in horror at the unusual aggression of the pack members. After a series of blows from all sides, the victim fell to the ground, mortally wounded..

A short time later, the doctors who treated him found him lying in the back of a car with no signs of life. The autopsy was conclusive: “Citizen Báez Sosa Fernando José died traumatically. traumatic cardiac arrest due to neurogenic shock from multiple head injuries caused massive intraparenchymal intracranial hemorrhage without bone fracture.

The attackers did not realize the consequences of their atrocities at that moment. In fact, they all went to sleep in the flat they rented, except for a few who chose to have a bite at a nearby hamburger. The next day, the police knocked on his door. They looked surprised. When asked about Baez’s death, they shrugged.. An agent saw the blood-stained sneakers, and the group’s first reaction was that they belonged to a person named Pablo Ventura.

The fact is that the boy remained in jail for three days until he was released. Security cameras couldn’t find him in the area during the brutal fight. However, images taken from the same cameras, statements of various witnesses, WhatsApp conversations of the defendants, bloodstained clothing and DNA evidenceserved to define ‘rugby players and seat them on the dock of the accused.

national shock

The news shook the conscience of Argentines. Also those from the rugby world. His estimated values ​​were buried at the foot of a beach disco. Pope Francis himself showed years ago that he was fascinated by the essence of a “hard” sport like rugby, but fascinated by “great loyalty” and “respect”..

The Pope was no stranger to the tragedy at Villa Gesell. He called the parents of the teenager who was brutally murdered on February 2, 2022, saying he was “very close” to his family. and that he will “always” accompany them in their suffering. Maybe it’s because of the Pope’s interest in this issue, maybe not, but the truth is that nothing is the same anymore because forgotten debates such as classism, security and the massification of nightclubs have come to the fore again.

Rugby in Argentina has been a sport culturally linked to men since its inception. This discriminatory practice is often typical of private schools. Juan Branz, PhD in Communications from the National University of La Avocado and author of ‘Machos de verdad’. Masculinities, sport and class are in Argentina’, in an interview published by ‘Página12’, frankly: “Those who killed that boy [Fernando] They were doing what they knew they had to do. This was not an act of brutality, as they say. It is a phenomenon that occurs within a conscious and rational system. In fact, premeditated, not death, but attack, fight, shows the other who is stronger and who is more male.”

naturalized violence

If there’s one authoritative voice in Argentina to talk about values, it’s Los Pumas ex-captain Agustín Pichot. According to him, one of the problems with rugby is that violence becomes natural. He says he suffers in his own flesh, naturally accepting the harassing. “They’ll spit on you or bite you until you can’t sit still”. Or “cutting my hair because I love my hair so much and there’s nothing funny about it.”

He also remembers asking his 18-year-old daughter what she thought of rugby players after the murder of Fernando Báez. “They’re patoteros, quilomberos, and aggressors,” he told her. His response was to send an apologetic message to the Pope, “What was my responsibility because I was one of those who ultimately delivered this naturalization.”

And Pichot vehemently denies that violence in the rugby world is isolated incidents. “They say individual facts, but when it’s too much, we’re talking about a cultural issue, and this is where you have to work hard.”, he muttered in an interview on a YouTube channel.

Until the day of the trial, the defendants have been held in a prison in Dolores, a small town in Buenos Aires province, for the past three years. It was here that the Oral Criminal Court No. 1, composed of Judges Christian Rabaia and Emiliano Lazzari and chaired by Judge María Antonia Castro, began the oral hearing on January 2, with more than a hundred witnesses.

The judge personally informed them. invoice those accused of a crime “Twice aggravated murder due to the commission of treason and willful rivalry of two or more persons with the crime of minor injury”Referring to the beatings that Fernando Báez’s friends suffered when they tried to help him.

life imprisonment

In practice, Argentine legislation classifies this crime as life imprisonment, a type of Spanish-style reviewable permanent prison, not just The sentence could not be reviewed until the actual completion of 35 years, something that can be done from the age of 25 in Spain.. The prisoner can be released only if he passes a series of tests that ensure he is fit for social reintegration. If the judge does not appreciate the intent to kill in the defendants, then the offense to be applied would be murder in a fight, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

The prosecutors in charge of the case, Gustavo García and Juan Manuel Dávila, were determined and strong in their final defense. They have clearly stated that eight people sitting on the defendant’s dock were “co-authors” of the murder of Fernando Báez.. They were particularly harsh with Máximo Thomsen, whom they accused of keeping his victim from getting up while beating him.

They also made it clear that the acquittal statements and tears of the defendants were never believed. No apologies or regrets. “Everyone cried, but only when their relatives testified, not because of what happened before.”Davilla snapped.

Solidarity with parents

Throughout the trial days, signs of eternal solidarity with the young man’s parents were seen around the courtroom. On the fences surrounding the building were bouquets of flowers, lit candles, photographs of the accused with the words “murderers” and posters calling for life sentences. Others were so illuminating the outrage that the Argentine people were subjected to this heinous crime: “Dry tears, zero empathy, false killers are worse than a racist, arrogant and violent animal. 44 million against you”.

Little, Náutico Arsenal founder Zárate Rugby had helped with some of Bernardo Ditges’ previous statements on Radio con Vos. “It was an accident, and to say that these men were part of a group that went to kill is utter nonsense.”

Ditges’ words confirm the “zero empathy” featured in the posters. Her frivolity is even more evident in the heart-wrenching statements of Fernando Báez’s mother at the end of one of the oral hearing sessions. “While I was in court, I saw many times how my son was beaten. I saw how they raised their hands and, As a mother, I felt the urge to cover my son so that they would stop jumping on his body and hitting him.”, he admitted to the media.